#and it's just spinning. in the doctor's hands. even after christ is dead. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pretty-face-breaker · 2 years

Text

Hayko Gets a Visit

It’s been a while since I’ve touched the early arc.

c.w. home invasion, referenced kidnapping and torture, gun, death threats, blackmail, noncon touching, kinda suggestive threat at the end

—

Hayko sat, hunched over, on the edge of his bed, breathing slowly for the fifth night in a row until the pain in his back ebbed. He let his eyes close for short increments, enough to get him tired but not too long that he would fall asleep.

After all, he still had the window unlocked.

The hospital had discharged him earlier that week. Technically, it was a requested discharge against doctor’s orders but it wasn’t their god damn insurance.

Still, the bandages held well enough and he wouldn’t be short on painkillers anytime soon, considering how he paced himself with them. He had been hesitant to take even one but the pain had been unrelenting, and eventually too much to bear.

Awake, again.

Hayko knew there wasn’t much use trying to sleep when he had woken up drenched, with his heart in his throat, the last few times.

Do you have any reason to believe your kidnapping could be related to gang activity?

Don’ know.

Like questioning a corpse. He remembered none of her questions, less of his half-dead mumbles, and his time in the actual hospital was a mush of sharp scents and nausea. All he knew now was that if he didn’t make something warm to drink, the thoughts wouldn’t stop.

Hayko pushed himself up and shuffled to the kitchen before stopping.

The window.

Rushing back, he nearly slammed it shut and twisted the handle.

Every light switch he passed was flicked on.

Hayko slowly picked a gun out of his largest flower pot before making his tea and set it beside him on the counter, watching it cautiously as the water boiled, listening for any disruption in the hum of the city outside. He had bought it no later than being discharged.

Within a few minutes, the roar of the kettle drowned out the sound of his breathing and Hayko took the moment to relax, letting the panic ease down. Where there was noise, there was safety. That basement had been too quiet too often.

Fear crept up again when the roar softened to a hiss and, eventually, back to shallow, pained breaths. That was when he began eyeing the piece again, even as he fished for green loose-leaf in the back of the cabinet.

A part of him felt like he was enabling his paranoia. There hadn’t been a message or even a breath from him or his cartel goons in nearly a week.

Maybe they forgot about me.

Maybe he was kidding about hiring me. Must’ve been high, right? There must be dozens more like me, scared, marked, threatened.

I’m just another guy.

But even he knew that was wishful thinking.

Wishful or not, it was working. He had slept to that tune for four days before the nightmares began, right in that hospital bed. Waking up with a stab of panic, drenched and choking on his saliva.

“Make me a cup, too.”

Hayko jerked as if he'd been slapped and yelped. Spinning around, his hand flew to the gun and brought it up to the intruder’s eyes until he felt a stab of terror. His grip began to shake as Nick brought a lighter up to his lips and lit an idle cigarette.

“I got bored waiting for you, sue me.”

He gasped in a breath, praying this was a hallucination or just too many fucking painkillers.

“Jesus christ. Don’t move, don’t fucking move.” Hayko slipped his finger down the trigger guard, wanting to run away at the responding cackle, and covered Nick’s mouth with the muzzle.

“What is that, a Ruger?” Nick chuckled.

Hayko watched him take a drag of his cigar and tried to stiffen his trembling voice. The city seemed so much quieter. “I can use deadly force.”

“So can I, gorgeous. Put it down.”

“Nick, I swear that I will fucking kill you,” Hayko warned, taking a step forward. “Then call the cops, then rat you out. They’ll-... take down your entire operation.”

Suddenly, a shadow passed over his eyes. Nick took the cigar out and pressed it into a nearby glass ashtray. “Come on. Even you know you’re bluffing.” Complimenting Hayko, he took a step forward himself. “That level of incompetence with an international cartel?”

Hayko felt like the gun would clatter to the floor.

“Put it down.”

Hayko squeezed his eyes shut. Anything to get away from this. Anything for some supernatural salvation. “I- I can’t.”

Nick fixed him with a pitying look. “Listen. If you kill me, you’ll be dead by tomorrow night.”

The waft of the cigarette smoke had flooded the kitchen and his nostrils. No loose leaf would fix that now. “I-If I put it down…” Hayko began, feigning control, “you’ll hurt me. I was in the hospital for-”

“I know how long you were in the hospital. I kept tabs, obviously. Put it down. I won’t hurt you tonight.”

There was some earnestness in his voice, even if it was mixed with that sadistic eagerness to pounce on him as soon as he put that gun down.

Hayko’s grip on the situation was faltering and it was all too easy to tell with the man’s frantic eyes. Nick, on the other hand, was exceedingly bored. He meandered closer to him and still no bullet, although it would be safe to say he might turn it on himself, a violent end to Nick’s violent delights.

“Put it down, Hayko,” Nick ordered with renewed danger.

Hayko’s voice broke on the ‘okay’, reading Nick’s predictions of what he might do instead. He set it half-heartedly on the counter, not fully opening his eyes and stayed facing the cabinets.

“Good boy. Now, make me a cup and come sit down.”

It took him a minute to catch his breath and suppress the urge to shut down and even more willpower to ignore the gun altogether as he made the tea.

As the leaves soaked, Hayko dimly thought that it would be more appropriate to have Nick make it. He was shit at deciphering accents but he couldn’t have been anything but British.

When he had sat down, he kept his eyes on the tablecloth.

“There’s a few items of business we need to discuss, don’t we?”

Hayko gripped his tea cup, saying nothing. The night was so deceptively calm, it would’ve fooled him. He only wished he had the ability to make time go by just a bit faster.

Nick sipped the tea and made a face, pushing it aside and while Hayko didn’t notice, he thought it appropriate to assure him that he “Never much cared for green tea”.

Hayko took a breath, purposely ignoring him. “How’d you get-”

Nick cut him off with a snort, as if he couldn’t believe that was the question he had been interrupted for. “You left your window unlocked and went to sleep.”

You cannot be fucking serious.

On the third floor? Really?

“Anyway, I wanted to drop by and check if you were alive. I was serious about you working for me, in case you decided to forget about that. And I’m serious now when I tell you that it’s your only way of this, love.”

Hayko winced at the nauseatingly gentle pet name. “...There has to be some other way. Nick, if I get caught-”

“You won’t.”

“My entire god damn life’s work,” he continued, unfazed. “I- I’m not even qualified.”

Nick paused and then smiled. “Oh yes, you’re qualified. I ran a background check. Lovely speaker, hard worker, and ambitious enough that this won’t be a problem for you. Don’t worry, you won’t have to work trials too often.”

By now, he had cradled his face in his hands. A sprouting attorney and he was already walking about disbarred and dead and didn’t know it yet.

“For fu-..., I’ll be an accessory,” Hayko groaned.

But the thought didn’t seem to bother Nick in the slightest.

“I’ll make sure you don’t get caught. Besides, I work with the organisation, controlling drugs and trafficking. You work for me.” And he shot another one of his spine-chilling smiles at Hayko.

Hayko didn’t know if Nick was the smartest between them or clinically insane.

At some point in his internal breakdown, Nick finished his tea - out of politeness - and set his cup in the sink. Hayko didn’t realise he had crept up behind him until he felt his fingers on his shoulders and jerked up.

Nick smiled to himself as the man shivered under his touch and began to knead the muscle he felt along his back, taking care to avoid the scars since he knew every one of them.

“If it soothes your moral compass, you’re not doing this voluntarily. If I hadn’t convinced that rotten cunt Miguel to keep you on…”

Hayko froze as he felt Nick bend to his ear.

“-you’d be writhing under me with my hands around your throat.”

He lifted his hands off at that point, satisfied with how far he had pushed the man. Hayko had started the night off with a foreign, rebellious courage and the muzzle of a Ruger pointed between his eyes. Now, he sat silent and trembling, his tea gone cold.

Perfect.

And Nick wanted to add in the reminder that he belonged to him but determined it wouldn’t be tasteful. He would have his lifetime to remind him, after all.

Before Nick left down the hall, he called back, “And take those painkillers, would you? It’ll do your back some good.”

“Mhm,” Hayko replied, monotone, when the door shut.

He still couldn’t believe he had slept, forgetting the window.

—

@doveotions @heathenville @thewhumpstuff @thatsthewhump @adamantem-rose @lonesome–hunter @whumpsorbet @whumpasaurus101 @lektricfergus @downrivergirl914 @burtlederp @redwingedwhump @nicolepascaline @ifbtnna @oh-so-skeletal

#whump #whump writing #whump series #whump drabble #sadistic whumper #noncon touching #threats #guns tw #home invasion #defiant whumpee #intimate whumper #nick and hayko

38 notes · View notes

biisexualemma · 3 years

Text

winter soldier. bucky barnes

word count: 2348

warnings: a bit of violence

requested: N/A

plot: you have to watch bucky fight like the winter soldier

a/n: i wrote this literally like thirty minutes after i watched ep.3 of tfatws! it is basically bucky's fight scene in the club because it's literally all i can think about after that episode (jesus christ it had me feeling a lot of things) but from your perspective. so i wrote this, same idea, some things changed slightly, e.g. you are also working with sam and bucky-- anyway! hope you like!

pt.2 / pt.3 / pt.4 / masterlist

"winter soldier."

you clenched your jaw, your teeth grinding together, eyes glued to bucky's vacant expression. your stomach was in knots. you were against the plan to begin with, but you had no choice but to take zemo's lead on this. that didn't mean you trusted him one bit, not after what he put your friends through. your hand remained firmly tucked against your thigh, where your knife was strapped to your leg.

you could feel your chest rising and falling faster as the man approached zemo from behind, your heart beating harder in your chest. the main reason behind your not wanting to go through with this mission was bucky. you knew how hard he worked every day to remove himself from his past, and here he was, again, placed right in the middle of everything he wanted to forget. the only reason you agreed to it was bucky's reassurance that he could handle it.

but right now, you were reminded of the man you met many years ago for the first time, only without the mask.

the man's hand fell onto zemo's shoulder. "attack," he spoke in the eerily familiar tongue.

he didn't hesitate, his vibranium arm snatched the man's hand away from zemo, you swore you heard something crack. you clutched your knife, yanking it out of it's holder, but before you got any further, sam's hand was restraining you. he didn't look your way, holding his cover, instead you both watched bucky drag the man away from the three of you, twisting his arm behind his back to where you heard another disturbingly loud crack.

you tried to keep your cover, but you couldn't help but flinch watching him use his full force to plough his vibranium arm against the mans chest, knocking him off his feet. his body slammed against the hard floor and you gulped, sam's hand tightening around your wrist when you made to move again.

"hold it," you glanced at sam for a split second, his eyebrows knitted tightly together watching the winter soldier in action, but he knew the consequences if he made to intervene. you could tell it was unsettling sam just as much as it was you, to watch bucky like this. but you had no choice but to stand and watch your boyfriend ruin anyone who came within a foot of him.

the bar was silent, the only sounds to be heard were the muffled groans coming from the man at bucky's feet. you noticed some of the people surrounding the fight had pulled out their phones and began recording the scene. you wanted to snatch them away and crumple them, but resolved to taking a deep breath and biting down on your tongue as hard as you could. you just had to endure for a little while longer and then it would be over.

you watched as bucky took apart two more men who came swinging towards him, zemo's expression was full of more amusement than you cared for. you felt blood trickling in your mouth, the metallic taste filling your taste buds after you had flinched and bit down harder on your tongue.

if sam hadn't been there to physically restrain you, you would've intervened long before this could start. you knew bucky was no longer controlled by zemo, but watching him fight like this was a brutal reminder of everything bucky had done and been through. you dreaded to think how it was making him feel having to slip back into the mindlessly violent nature that had been drilled into him.

sam's eyes darted around, watching bucky take out one guy after the next. zemo couldn't keep himself out of it, he shoved forward a bystander, watching, almost gleefully, as bucky threw a swing at the man, spinning him backwards before delivering another blow so forceful it took out another man standing behind him. your breath hitched in your throat, you couldn't stop yourself from cringing when another man was thrown off his feet, his spine cracking harshly against the metal joists when bucky's metal arm collided with his torso and sent him flying.

your ears were ringing slightly, your throat tightening the longer you watched this go on. "didn't take much for him to fall back into form," you heard zemo lean into sam's ear to mumble this but you caught it. you were going to kill that man yourself after this mission was over.

sam's grip loosened on your wrist when bucky clenched his metal hand around one man's neck, lifting him off his feet and slamming him down against the bar. you moved away from sam before he could stop you, your eyes wide with fear when bucky tightened his grip, the man's gasps for air were all that could be heard, that, and the cocking of several guns.

your hand moved from its position on your knife, to the cool metal of bucky's arm where he stood slowly cutting off this mans air supply. you clenched your hand tightly to pull him away, but he didn't shift, his intense gaze was locked on the man beneath him.

"stay in character or the whole bar turns on us," zemo muttered under his breath, his eyes wide and locked on yours. you hesitated, but pulled yourself away, not wanting to be the reason this mission was unsuccessful after everything you'd done to get to this point. you knew how much was riding on this.

you let out short, strained breaths, your eyes still locked on bucky's unwavering expression. you wondered how much he still felt in control of himself, or whether he was simply just keeping up the act.

"well done, soldier," zemo spoke after a brief silence. your stomach churned every time he would use that tongue to speak to bucky.

you watched bucky's eyes shift up to the bartender, his eyebrows slightly knitted and his hand slowly unclenching from around the mans throat. the man let out a strained wheeze, the breath returning to his lungs as bucky released his grip and let him fall to the ground with a thud behind him.

bucky could hear your loud, jagged breathing as you stood as close as possible to him without raising suspicion. he almost broke away when he felt your hand grip his arm earlier. but he didn't dare look to you, instead he kept his stare locked on the bartender in front of him, waiting for the words.

"silby will see you now," the bartender was watching bucky with an uneasy expression across his face. you watched bucky's chest rising and falling, you wanted desperately to reach out and touch his hand but you had to remind yourself why you were in this position to begin with. you needed to follow zemo's lead, find the source of the super-soldier serum and then you could deal with how you were feeling later.

"you good?" your voice came out smaller than you intended it to. you studied his expression from his profile, his tight lips and clenched jaw, waiting for him to break and look at you, but he didn't. he let out a quiet, hmph, nodding once before following zemo and sam to the back of the club.

you wished you were back in the club watching bucky beat those guys to a pulp, because after the past few hours, things somehow managed to go from bad to worse. your lead was now dead, literally, you bumped into sharon, of all people, who was meaner than you ever remember her being, and there was also a bounty on all of your heads.

currently, you were sat alone after having picked out fresh clothes from sharon's closet. she had reluctantly let you guys crash at her place, agreeing to help find a lead to doctor nagel.

you weren't sure how long you'd been sat staring at the wall in front of you until you heard footsteps approaching the room you were in. you didn't have to look to know who it was, you already knew. he sat beside you quietly, without saying a word. you could feel his eyes on you for a while before you forced yourself to meet his gaze. it was the first time you'd looked at him as himself, since the incident earlier. you gulped, his blue eyes not shifting from your own for even a second.

"hey," he mumbled softly. your eyebrows knitted into a delicate frown, you found yourself biting down on your tongue again. "you good?" you nodded, close lipped as you shifted your eyes from his face and down to your hands. you hadn't noticed your hands had clenched into tight fists.

after a brief silence, you felt your fingers uncurl, bucky's hand now enclosed in your fist. you let out a shaky breath, revelling in the comfort his touch brought you. you fiddled with his fingers, a habit you had when you were anxious that bucky let you use him for.

"are you good?" you gulped, glancing at him for a second before focusing on your tangled hands again. he nodded, letting out a quiet hum.

"i wouldn't've gone in there if i thought i couldn't handle it," you nodded, feeling his hand squeeze yours briefly. "i came to check on you."

your eyes fluttered, a wave of tire washing over you suddenly. you shook your head. "i'm fine, don't worry," you said it out of habit, but you knew bucky was the type to always worry. especially when it came to you.

"i never wanted you to have to see that again," you knew he was referring to the winter soldier. you had fought him back in the day with sam, nat and steve, before any of you knew who he really was. you'd been through a lot together, only recently had you become more than friends. or at least, you were trying to give it a go, things just kept getting in the way.

"i hardly saw anything," you tried to lie to ease his conscience. you sighed, looking up into his eyes again, they were soft and inviting, his lashes fluttering slightly when you met his gaze.

"you've always been a terrible liar," he tightened his lips into a halfhearted, closed-mouthed smile, trying to ease some of your anxiety. you mimicked his weak attempt at a smile, moving closer to him and leaning your head atop his shoulder. he shifted his free arm around your waist, tugging you as close to him as possible, leaning down to press a lingering kiss atop your head.

"i just want you to be safe, buck," you admitted. "i don't like that you're having to go through all this again-- what with zemo-- and this place-- i see how people look at you, how they talk to you."

"i know, doll," he mumbled, his lips resting softly against your temple now. you tried to relish in the short amount of time you had alone with him, your eyes closing for a moment as you breathed in his scent. "i don't like it either, but it's just for a bit longer."

you hummed quietly, letting yourself relax in his arm. your hand was still tangled with his own, your fidgeting had stopped and instead you let your fingers intertwine with his, him squeezing your hand now and again for reassurance.

"thank you for looking out for me," he spoke after a while of you two embracing each others company. "it's been a while, but it's a nice feeling."

you lifted your head, tilting your head back to get a good look at his face. he looked tired, but still wore a small, appreciative smile on his lips, along with his soft gaze. you felt your stomach flutter, you couldn't disguise a similar smile working it's way onto your lips. something about bucky was so sweet, in his nature, he cared so much for the people around him even if he was bad at communicating it sometimes. you wanted a better and quieter life for him when this was all finally over.

"it's nice to have someone to look out for," you muttered truthfully. you had spent such a long time fighting with the avengers, you'd never had the time to even go out on a date, never mind figuring out a relationship. and though it was difficult, sometimes, navigating your relationship with bucky, you knew at the end of the day, you liked him a lot, and you only wanted to be with him. and you were pretty sure he felt the same way towards you.

bucky's hand moved away from yours, to your chin, using his forefinger and thumb to tilt your chin upwards, your face moving closer to his. he leaned down and caught his lips against yours, his hand drifting to your jawline, where he held your face in the palm of his hand. your mind thought of nothing but the feeling of his lips moving against yours, soft and slow.

it didn't matter what was going to happen next, as long as bucky was there with you.

"oh-- shit-- i should've knocked," you pulled away, chuckling against bucky's lips, peeking out the corner of your eye to see sam had walked in and frozen once he realised what he'd walked in on. bucky groaned, his eyes rolling. of course, sam was interrupting.

"please-- get out," he shot a stone-cold glare towards sam, who chuckled uncomfortably.

"oh-- i wish i could," he groaned. "that was something i wish i'd never seen-- but the party is starting soon-- we gotta get out there."

you broke away, realising your short, but sweet moment was over. you kissed bucky quickly, one last time before pushing yourself up trying to shake your head clear of any thoughts of your boyfriend so you could focus on the mission.

you heard sam lower his voice, thinking somehow you wouldn't be able to hear him as he hung back with bucky, you walking ahead. "how you still got game like that? you're like a hundred and two--"

"hundred and six," he corrected, frowning at his partner. " and stop talking about my game."

870 notes · View notes

beholdme · 3 years

Text

All the Many Shades of Gerry - Chapter 11

Chapters: 11/19

Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Gerard Keay, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay/Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist

Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Gerard Keay, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Gertrude Robinson, Elias Bouchard

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Library AU, Librarian Jon, Artist Gerry, Trans Male Character, Trans Martin Blackwood, Canon Asexual Character, Asexual Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist, Ace Subtype - Sex Positive, Polyamory, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romantic Fluff, Falling In Love, Boys in Skirts, Kissing, Demisexual Gerard Keay, Minor Character Death, Past Character Death, Canon-Typical Child Neglect, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Flirting, Minor Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Adventures in Hair Dying, Happy Ending, Banter, Gerry has a lot of sass, Gerard Keay is Morticia Adams, Jon is a very grumpy Librarian, Martin adores them anyway.

Summary: In which Gerry is a kaleidoscope and Jon and Martin can’t help falling in love with him.

He happens to love them back.

Find it on Ao3

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

Jon has a terrible, sinking feeling about what he considers their new Mary Keay problem.

He knows Gerry feels more confident that he can deal with her now, as an adult with his own resources and a solid foundation, but Jon doesn't want her ever walking into their lives again.

He feels the threat of her existence hanging over their hard-won peace like an anvil on a lace string.

"I think we should try to find her," Jon tells Martin one evening when they’re alone in bed. Gerry is downstairs painting, and even though he almost certainly can't hear them, Jon whispers it like a dirty secret.

"You think-" Martin looks up from his book with an almost comically incredulous look on his face. "You think we should look for a murder who threatened your life?"

Utterly uninterested in secrets between the three of them, Martin does not attempt to speak quietly.

"Well, when you put it like that," Jon grumbles, returning his attention to his book and pretending to drop it.

The next day at work, he puts his researching skills to the test. It doesn't even take very long, and in less than an hour, he has an address in Morden, where she apparently owns a bookstore of all things.

The information available is fairly spartan, updated more than a year ago, but Jon can see enough. He can see that she lives less than an hour from Gerry, and it itches at him.

He knows he shouldn't go. Knows that Martin and Gerry will be furious if they ever find out that he snooped, nevermind if he goes there and unsettles old ghosts..

But still, he takes a half-day off from work and gets on a bus to Morden.

When Jon arrives and finds the storefront boarded up, he is half reassured, half perturbed. He had felt almost relieved when he had a concrete lead to follow, but now all he has is more questions.

"She's dead."

Jon startles at being unexpectedly spoken to and turns towards a teen girl sitting in the storefront doorway next door.

"She died, like a while ago? Apparently she lost her shit and cut herself up with a piece of glass. Bleed to death on the floor." She inclines her head towards the dilapidated bookstore. She seems quite taken with the gossip, as if it's the most interesting thing to ever intercept with her boring life. It probably is, Jon thinks, uncharitably.

"When did it happen?" He prods, hoping for as many details as possible.

"Oh, like two years ago?" She nods at herself in confirmation. "You can go in if you want. It's haunted. People are always going in to see if they can find Mary's ghost."

Jon shudders, feeling that Mary's ghost is already plenty present enough in his life. He asks how to get in anyway.

Jon doesn't find any obvious ghosts inside, only a lot of dust, a few vandalised books, and a trashed building.

There's a staircase leading upwards and he stares up at the upper landing for a moment, weighing his options. Might as well , he thinks, and proceeds up it carefully.

There's literally nothing but more dust, and Jon descends into a sneezing fit just as he is deciding to cut his losses, feeling slightly dizzy.

The sneezing turns into coughing, and Jon takes a step back to lean against a wall.

But the wall isn't there, and he falls.

And falls.

Jon calls Martin from the hospital. He’s down in Brighton, meeting with a business supplier, and Jon assumes this makes it a safe bet he'll arrive without Gerry. He assumes wrong.

Gerry arrives, alone, in half the time it would take Martin to make the trip, looking flustered and scared.

"How did you get here so fast?" Jon demands incredulously, made short by his shame and physical discomfort.

"How did I-" Gerry pauses and takes a deep breath, but his next words are still slightly shrill. "I took a fucking Uber, Jonathan. How did you get here?"

Jon opens his mouth, but Gerry cuts him off as he goes on.

"You went looking for Mary, didn't you?" Jon's guilty face must tip him off, because he simply goes on, pacing angrily. "Christ, Jon! What the hell were you expecting to find? And you know what, Martin didn't even sound surprised when he called me to tell me you were here. You know, I can understand this uncommunicative bullshit from you, but not Martin."

"That's not very nice," Jon grouses.

"And do you think it was nice for me to hear from Martin that you were hurt? I'm glad to know he was your one and only phone call from an ambulance."

"Gerry-"

"Don't fucking Gerry me."

"I'm sorry," Jon says, looking down at his hands.

"Are you, Jon? Because you don't even know the worst part yet. If you had asked me, I could have told you Mary was dead, and then we wouldn't be in this mess at all."

"You knew?"

"Of course I knew! I was her next of kin!"

Gerry stops, pressing his fingers into his eyes and blowing a hard breath out. He takes several more breaths, heart-pounding, anxiety through the roof.

"Jon, how hurt are you?" Gerry asks quietly, coming closer to gently take a hand.

"Just a few bruises." Gerry raises an eyebrow in disbelief. "A mild concussion." And the other. "Maybe a few broken ribs."

"Oh, my sweet, sweet idiot. How loving you makes me want to climb the walls sometimes."

"Only sometimes?" Jon fills his voice with false levity, although it comes out rather shaky.

Gerry grunts, but leans down to kiss his forehead very gently. It's a minuscule point of contact, but Jon knows Gerry and can feel the tremble of fear (fear for him, who would have thought), and the tension of his frustration.

"I'm going to go talk to the doctor, okay? Just- just take it easy. Everything will be fine, love."

Jon doesn't believe him, not really, but he lets Gerry go. There's a lot of noise and movement after that, and Jon's head spins through most of it. Gerry is there, talking to doctors, querying the tests they want to run, and just generally making his opinion in regards to his partner's care very clear.

Martin knows it's bad when he arrives at the hospital and finds Gerry chain-smoking in the parking lot. His expression mostly just looks exhausted, but in his favorite black trench coat, and most intimidating combat boots, he looks ready to burn something down.

"That bad, huh?" Martin tries, but Gerry simply waves him towards the entrance, not making eye contact.

Martin almost cuts his losses, wanting to deal with one idiot at a time, but doesn't want to leave Gerry to sulk.

"How is he?" Martin asks.

"He's in one piece. They asked me to leave so they could do the x-rays. Apparently, he fell over a banister."

"A banister? How?"

"Your guess is as good as mine until we can interrogate him." Gerry takes a long, contemplative drag of his cigarette. "But apparently it's not all that bad and as long as the x-rays look clear, we can take him home in a couple of hours."

"He couldn't have chosen a worse time."

Gerry grunts in agreement. "He's going to tell us he wants to go back to his own flat, but that's only because he thinks I'm angry at him."

"And why would he think that?" Martin questions.

Gerry takes another long drag of his cigarette as if testing Martin's attention span, or patience, or both. Martin just waits, still and easy.

Gerry explains what he knows, his earlier outburst, Jon's guilty, stupid face.

When the cigarette is smoked and put out, Martin finally approaches Gerry all the way, and Gerry sinks into his arms gratefully.

"Everything will be fine."

"Hardly. This is my fault to begin with, and I yelled at him. In a hospital bed!"

"It's as good a place as any other, love. Come on, let's go get him so we can take him home."

Martin kisses him gently, before taking his hand and dragging him off to find Jon.

"Your partner is very loud." The blonde nurse with the buzzcut tells Jon as she wheels him to imaging.

"In his defense, I'm an idiot." He sighs, causing his battered ribs to ache.

She laughs heartily, wheeling him into an elevator. "Almost everyone I meet as an A&E nurse is. At least you seem like an interesting idiot."

Jon actually smiles, somehow pleased with the observation. "I'm Jon."

"Daisy Tonner." She offers a hand, which Jon shakes as firmly as he can manage. "You seem a bit old for trespassing in haunted houses, Jon."

The elevator dings and she wheels him out into the imaging wing. "I was looking for the woman who died there." Daisy gives him a skeptical look and he sighs dramatically. "I didn't know she was dead."

Daisy nods her understanding. "I remember when she died actually. They brought her here that night. Never seen someone with so much blood loss be so… Erratic. We had to strap her down." Daisy looks contemplative as she recalls the memory.

"She was a crazy bitch to the very end, then?" Jon asks, bitterness creeping through his tone at the woman who caused Gerry (still causes Gerry,) so much pain. Jon doesn't allow himself, yet, to dwell on the heartache of the years of Gerry she took from him.

"For sure," Daisy tells him. "What do you do for a living then?"

"I'm a librarian?" Jon tells her, but it goes up a bit at the end, like a question.

"Really?" Daisy asks wryly, "You don't sound very sure."

Jon considers laughing but remembers his ribs in time to settle on a tired smile. "I do work in a library but to be frank, most of the time I just feel like my boss's busy boy. Always running here and there and doing everything but what I thought I was supposed to be doing."

"Most professions aren't what we think they are when we sign up for them," Daisy observes. She parks his wheelchair outside a door and leans around to let them know a patient is waiting.

"Do you like being a nurse?" Jon asks her when she settles against the wall beside him, looking rather more intimidating than one would expect from the average health care worker.

"Most of the time. Sometimes it can be just exhausting and draining." She shrugs, contemplative. "Sometimes I get a patient that makes all the shit worthwhile. Mostly I just want to deck someone, though."

She cracks up at that and looks down at Jon to give him a feral grin. "Your boyfriend seems like a worthwhile candidate. Very punchable face."

"Careful, he might enjoy it," Jon warns her, deadpan.

They exchange a pointed look for a moment, before bursting into laughter. It pains Jon significantly, but he considers it worthwhile to enjoy the moment with a strange new friend.

By the time Daisy returns Jon to his room, both Martin and Gerry are there. Daisy looks pointedly between blue-haired, pierced, goth Gerry, and pink-haired, jumper clad, soft Martin and then eyes up 'born an 85-year old man' Jon for good measure.

Jon just shrugs at her and she nods in acknowledgment, before helping Jon into his hospital bed.

"As soon as the imaging comes through, it'll be checked by the surgeon on duty," Daisy informs them briskly, "then they'll come through and let you know what's happening. You'd best settle in for a bit of a wait. Buzz if you need me."

With a curt nod and a small smile for Jon, Daisy is off.

Martin comes over and pulls Jon into his comfortable arms, pressing his lips to Jon's forehead. He sighs out in relief to have solid reassurance that Jon is alright, alive, and relatively unscathed.

Gerry also moves over from his perch on the windowsill, and folds himself onto the bed, cross-legged in front of his errant partner.

They settle all together, Martin beside Jon, one unwavering arm around his shoulders, Gerry in front of Jon, both of his hands holding both of Jon's.

Jon opens his mouth to apologize.

"I'll go first," Gerry tells him, gently. "I am sorry that I was so upset earlier and that I raised my voice. I was fucking scared and I took it out on you when you needed me to be soft and steady. I'm also sorry that I didn't tell you Mary was dead before."

Jon tries to interrupt now, but Martin silences him with a squeeze.

"I meant to tell you, but it was all very messed up and over-wrought and I honestly forgot." Gerry looks chastised, a rare blush staining his cheeks. "I hope that we can get better at talking these things out so that this doesn't happen again."

He pauses, considering. "And I hope that if I have made you think that you can't talk to me by avoiding telling you things in the past, that you can forgive me and I will do what I need to be better."

Jon is truly floored, and utterly speechless. The words themselves had been a little bit halting and slightly awkward, as Gerry struggled to express himself, but the earnestness proves to Jon just how much Gerry loves him.

"I- I'm sorry too." Jon stutters out. "I'm an idiot but I love you. I hope we can get better at this together."

His words feel downright juvenile after Gerry's acknowledgement, but it's all he's got, pounding head and trapped emotions preventing similar declarations (oh and his total lack of social skills). Gerry beams at him regardless and he leans forwards to kiss Jon sweetly on the forehead.

Martin grabs Gerry's hand and places a kiss on his palm, sending him a significant look. It feels like approval to Jon, and he can't help but appreciate their bond just as much as his own with each of them.

They settle to wait, and they take turns reading from Martin's book to pass the time, each of their voices having a few moments to fill the air and weave around them.

Dr. Basira Hussain eventually comes in, assuring them that Jon's concussion is mild, his ribs are only bruised, and that he should make a full recovery (if he rests), in just a few weeks. They thank her profusely and she leaves them with Daisy to check out.

Gerry goes off to take care of the paperwork and in a few minutes, they're saying goodbye and walking out of the hospital together. Martin and Gerry flank Jon carefully, there to support him if he stumbles.

He also sits between them in the taxi, head on Martin's shoulder and one hand grasped between both of Gerry's. He feels exhausted and floaty from painkillers, and every jolt of the car makes it difficult to breathe.

He smiles, rather unexpectedly. Despite his current predicament, he's glad enough to know that Mary Keay is dead and that chapter of their lives is definitely closed. He does wish he had just asked Gerry, but he hopes that the strained feelings and injuries will blow over and she will finally be out of their lives for good, nothing but a sad, angry memory. A shade living only in the memories of those that didn't know her.

#the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #gerry keay #jongerrymartin #fic #also on ao3

6 notes · View notes

aroseandapen · 4 years

Text

{Cybernetic Organism}

100 Prompts Challenge. Won’t be every day but I’ll do my best to finish it. Pairings chosen by a generator.

Prompt 4: ‘Just hold on, you’ll be alright.’

Tsumugi is dying, but for some reason Miu refuses to let her go.

Warnings: Major (temporary) character death, choking, blood, as well as briefly described distress at part of one’s own body

Tsumugi had no feeling in the arm pulled around the back of Miu’s neck. Her head hung limply, her neck rolling as her consciousness faded in and out. One of Miu’s hands had an iron grip on her wrist, the other digging into Tsumugi’s waist. Without her glasses, Tsumugi was practically blind, but even through the blur, she saw the frightening amount of blood still gushing from the wound through her tightly-locked fingers pressed against it.

“Hold on, just hold on,” Miu grunted. Her chest heaved with the exertion from dragging Tsumugi’s dead weight all this way, her own clothes permanently stained with Tsumugi’s blood. “You’ll be alright. Just stay awake. Don’t fall asleep on me.”

She didn’t understand. Tsumugi’s breath weakly fluttered out from her lips. “Why?” she croaked, unable to even lift her head to look at Miu.

“Shut up! This isn’t the time, just conserve your energy for getting through this, alright?!”

If she had the energy for it, Tsumugi might’ve laughed at that. Not because it was funny. She was scared, completely terrified of dying. But even though she wasn’t a doctor, she didn’t think with her injuries and blood loss that she would be coming back from this. And Miu had no reason to bother with this futile attempt at taking her--where? The hospital? A back-alley surgeon? It didn’t matter, there was nowhere that would help her now.

And why would Miu help her, after the part she’d played in their torment during the killing game? The mastermind of their mental torture, though a larger body of people behind her had been the true ones who orchestrated it. She just didn’t understand.

But she didn’t have the mental capacity to wonder, either. Her heartbeat stuttered, consciousness fading in and out. A pitiful whine escaped on her next exhale, though oddly enough the excruciating pain swung into numbness. Or else her brain overloaded from the amount of sensory input scrambling it. Her vision too was going; although her eyes were open, Tsumugi couldn’t see a thing.

Or were they open at all? Maybe they’d fallen closed, and she didn’t even have the energy to raise her upper lashes.

Her pulse stalled, fluttering back to life. The thudding in her ears weakened to a quiet in and the darkness of her vision grew blacker as if the sun had been swallowed, too. She gurgled, something like water in her throat, drowning her. And then, barely able to choke, it submerged her completely.

------

Like a switch flicked on, Tsumugi’s consciousness jolted into full blinding clarity. She gasped, taking in the quickest, easiest breath of her life. Bewildered, she brought a hand up to her chest.

Her fingertips clicked against a metal plate, embedded into her breastbone. With touch, she followed it to its edges until she met an irregular scar that marked the boundary where the metal met skin. Became skin.

Miu’s head popped into view. Tsumugi would’ve blinked in surprise, but her eyelids didn’t respond--wait. Did she have eyelids?

“Thank fucking christ you woke up!” Dark circles marred Miu’s under-eye area, but she was grinning. Why was she grinning at her? “You gave me the biggest scare; I thought you’d never wake up and I’d be a fucking failure, geez. Thank god I’ve looked into this shit for a while now.”

“What?” Tsumugi asked, but something sounded wrong about her voice. She touched her neck--more metal embedded into the skin. It was like the sounds came out of her throat without her pushing the air out.

“Well, you know, since Kiibo’s a robot and all I thought I got bring some of his shit into some of this shit, and my shit fucking worked!”

Tsumugi shook her head. “No, not that, I…” She looked down at her hands--one of blue, shiny metal, and one mainly of flesh. “What am I…? How…?”

“You know what cyborgs are, right? Part human, part robot? Same fucking idea. There was no way you were getting through those injuries otherwise, you know. There was a lot I had to replace here.”

Oh, so that was what happened. Tsumugi turned her hands over, pressing down into her thighs. Her sense of touch in the robot hand was dulled; not gone completely, but nowhere near the level of her normal one. She wondered faintly if Kiibo felt this way totally all the time. If so, she had new empathy for the robot.

Again she raised her face. Just as she opened her mouth to ask the next question burning in her mind--why--the word died on her lips at the look on Miu’s face.

The confidence and cheer had drained away. Unshed tears shone in her squinted eyes, her skin red and blotchy even as she held back tears. Tsumugi didn’t know what to say; she hadn’t genuinely interacted with her peers in so long that she found that she didn’t know how to now. Shakily, she raised a hand to Miu’s face. All she could do was think back to the sad parts of anime she had watched and try to replicate it as much as possible.

It made her feel pathetic.

As she gently touched Miu’s face, she caught sight of the metal hand. Her fingers contracted sharply into a fist, a pang of distress at seeing the limb that wasn’t hers attached to her body, a mismatch that set her heart racing and mind spinning. But Miu lurched forward, wrapping her arms so tightly around Tsumugi that the two nearly rocked off the side of the examination table. Tsumugi’s arms automatically embraced Miu in return, and the overwhelming warmth, the softness of Miu’s torso pressed so closely to hers distracted her from the spiral she’d nearly been sent into.

“Don’t die on me, ok? Don’t you fucking dare die on me.”

It wasn’t like Tsumugi had a choice, but even she knew that was the worst thing to say at the moment. She closed her eyes to better focus on the feeling of Miu squeezing her so tightly. She still didn’t know why Miu saved her, but for now she would only accept that Tsumugi, to Miu, was somehow someone worth saving.

“Ok,” she whispered, feeling Miu’s silent tears soak into the sleeve of her shirt.

#tsumiu #miu iruma #tsumugi shirogane #drv3 #drabble #what the fuck is the shIP NAME

27 notes · View notes

thompsborn · 4 years

Note

“you’re the grizzled old mechanic i’m kinda scared of who’s been keeping my car running and you found out i’m living in my car and oh shit you offered me the couch at your place? and you made me breakfast? how do i even pay you back, can i work for you?” au

happy fathers day, here’s some irondad with his lil mechanic son becoming a lil family (and, because i wanted to, some parksborner, too)

—

“So, what happened this time?”

Harley puffs out a breath, arms crossed over his chest and shoulders bunching up to his ears in a half assed kind of shrug. “Honestly? Not sure. I checked under the hood last night and couldn’t see any issues, but I must have been tired or somethin’ ‘cause she barely made it here in one piece. Thank Christ you’re on call or I’d be totally fucked right now.”

Tony hums, leaning forward with slightly furrowed brows and squinted eyes, taking in the engine slowly and precisely to spot anything wrong. “Don’t need an oil change, right?”

Instinctively, Harley rolls his eyes—despite what Tony seems to think, he’s more than capable of fixing up his car and changing the oil himself. It’s more a money issue than a knowledge issue, and Tony, for whatever reason, never charges Harley when he brings his banged up Mustang to his shop after closing hours. So, it’s easier, really, on his wallet and on his physical health to just bring her in and have Tony fix her up. He doesn’t bring any of this up, though, because Tony... Tony is a quiet sort of man, doesn’t like the small talk or the chitter chatter. He’s brooding in the way only a man in his fifties can be, shoulders hunched with the weight of a long life, bags under his eyes and a healthy bit of salt and pepper to his hair. Harley tried making a sarcastic comment his second time he came in and Tony didn’t respond in the slightest, leaving them in an uncomfortable silence until Harley was good to go.

He’d rather have the stupid questions that he always responds with the same answers to than the silence from before.

“No oil change needed,” Harley replies. “Just changed it last week. That’s not the problem.”

Tony quirks a brow and looks at Harley over his shoulder, something unsure and almost condescending on his features. “Just checking,” he says. “Lots of people come here thinking their car is at ends meet, just to be in complete awe when I change their oil and it runs without a hitch.”

“I’m not gonna be one of those people,” Harley tells him. “I know enough to know that.”

“And yet you’re here, asking for my help with your shitmobile, nearly once a week.”

Harley shrugs again and looks away.

“Alright,” Tony murmurs, hands in the air in some sign of surrender. “I’ll take a look and fix her up in time for curfew, kid. No worries.”

Without thinking, Harley says, “I don’t have a curfew,” and only panics for a second before casually adding, “College,” after it in explanation. A false explanation, but—still.

Tony seems unbothered, turning back to look at the engine. “Fine. Then she’ll be ready in time for you to go home and get a full night’s rest before your classes tomorrow. Sound good?”

There are no classes, and there is no full night of rest—Harley will find a vacant lot in the shadow of a building where his car will blend in, and he will sleep in the backseat long enough to be able to function through a shift at work with only a minor crick in his back to deal with.

It’s routine, at this point—park, sleep, work. On a good day, make enough to splurge on a hot meal. Usually, just cheap, greasy fast food.

“Sure,” Harley says anyway. “Sounds good.”

Looking back on it, Harley’s not entirely sure how this happened.

Like—he knows how, he lived it, each and every agonizing moment of it, but, sometimes, when he reminisces on the timeline of events, it doesn’t really feel real. It doesn’t feel like something he really experienced.

It is, though. First, with his dad, leaving in broad daylight and never coming back. Harley, seven years old and—and so sad, wondering why daddy left, wondering if daddy ever loved him. Mama pet his hair when he cried and promised him that they didn’t need David Keener to be happy, but there was a lot less happiness in that house when he left. Darcy Keener started to look heavier and heavier with each passing day, until it seemed as though she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. As much as Harley tried to get his little sister to smile, Emilee, far too smart for someone so young, would only start to cry with anguish. She missed their father. Harley did, too.

Then, for a few years, slowly lifting themselves up, building a new foundation without David’s help, until it was stable enough for the three of them, until they weren’t really—happy, no, but—content, maybe. Something close to it.

Until Emilee got sick.

Harley got his first job to try and pay the hospital bills and buy the medicine she needed when they inevitably couldn’t afford to keep her in the hospital anymore. He got his second job while still working his first, dropped out of high school because his mother was too stressed to even notice when he stopped going, managed to start fixing up neighbor’s cars and broken lamps and mowing lawns during the little free time he had just to get that little bit of extra cash. He got the right foods that the doctors said Emilee’s body was capable of processing, he added his money to his mother’s stash set aside to buy her meds, he sat with her every night until she fell asleep before climbing out of his window to work the night shift at his second job. He did everything he possibly could.

He was seventeen when Emilee passed away in her sleep. Peaceful, the doctor’s assured them—she felt no pain, and now she’ll be able to rest. In Heaven, they assured, where she could be happy again.

Harley stopped believing in Heaven the day his dad abandoned them. He didn’t say that, though—just hugged his mother and let her sob into his shoulder.

Darcy lost herself, a little bit at first, and then entirely. She slept in and would be late for her shifts, drank more coffee than was healthy and then made it worse by adding liquor to it at seven in the morning. She looked at Harley with glazed over eyes and never seemed to hear the way he cried at night. One day, she didn’t come home from work, and Harley waited up for her all night, the panic slowly rising in his throat until it felt like he was choking on it, thinking that she might never come back. Thinking that Darcy and David might start to go hand in hand—but she did come home, dead on her feet and looking bruised. She went straight to her room and never responded when Harley asked where she went.

On his eighteenth birthday, Darcy didn’t remember. He bought himself some cupcakes and he sat on the floor of Emilee’s room and he drank the liquor he stole from his mother’s cabinet until he felt numb to it all. Slept like that, curled up atop the carpet, bottle curled up against his chest and arms hugging himself.

She drove to work one day, a little too far away from sober. They said her eyes were probably struggling to focus and her head might have been spinning and she didn’t realize the light was red until it was too late to stop.

He left the night that she died.

New York, of all places—and he still isn’t sure why he chose to run to the city, hours and hours away. The distance, maybe, to separate himself from his past and allow his chest to expand easier. Breathing, sometimes, feels like a task, or a chore. Too much work, but still he does it. Doesn’t have a choice, really.

The drive from Rose Hill to New York was made in his mother’s car, somehow not totaled despite the accident. There were stains that he didn’t want to look at, didn’t want to think about. The first thing he did was trade his piece of shit car for someone else’s piece of shit car just to get rid of the memories, just to free himself from the knowledge that he was driving the thing his mother died in.

That’s what he drives now, the crappy Oldsmobile that he traded with someone on Craigslist. It’s old, run down, in need of a lot of love, but he can’t afford a new car, so he does his best to take care of her. Names her Em, doesn’t think of why.

It’s her and him against the world, though. They have to make it out alive.

Someone slash’s his tires while he’s sleeping.

He doesn’t notice it when he first wakes up, just sits up, tries his best to stretch his limbs in the limited space, and reaches for his shitty pre-paid phone that he only bought so that his work can get in contact with him. There’s no missed calls, no unopened texts, and he’s not scheduled for today.

Climbing out of his car to properly shake out his sleep heavy limbs, he looks around the alley that he parked his car in last night—was too tired to drive to the lot he usually parks in at night. That’s his mistake, really, because the lot is vacant and hidden in the shadows and no one ever bothers him there. Alleyways, though, are often visited by other homeless people and the people who make drug deals in the dead of night and, occasionally, random, harmless kids just going on a walk, apparently used to and unafraid of the danger.

There’s no telling who slashes his tires or why the hell they did it, but it’s the first time he’s had to call Tony’s shop during working hours, in need of a tow truck, four new tires, and—well. Harley could do with a hug.

He won’t ask for that, though. It’s been a few years since he had one, anyway.

It takes five words for Harley to almost have a panic attack.

“This is pretty pricey, kid,” Tony tells him, arms crossed over his chest as he frowns at the Oldsmobile with furrowed brows. Harley thinks the air is immediately sucked out of his lungs because—well, of course it’s pricey. Of course he shouldn’t have assumed that Tony wouldn’t make him pay just because he’s let Harley get light work done for free before. Of course.

“Yeah,” Harley says, feelings a bit—breathless? He fumbles for his wallet, sinks his teeth into his lower lip so hard that he thinks he tastes copper. There’s a small stack of bills that he pulls out with unsteady fingers. “I, uh—I have—how much is it? I can—I mean, I can try to—or just, just leave, or—or—”

Tony holds out his hands, no longer looking at the car and instead trying to hold Harley’s gaze with his brows raised. “Calm down, kid. It’s fine.”

Harley shakes his head. “No, I—I can’t afford it, so I’ll just—“

“I’m not making you pay,” Tony interrupts, looking confused. “I haven’t made you pay yet, why would I start now? College discount, kid. Most college students can’t afford this shit, and you clearly need to have a working car. You’re fine.”

“But—”

Before Harley can try to argue this, the door leading from the office of the shop is pushed open and a—a teenager?—comes walking out, looking down at his phone with a frown. “Uh, Mr. Stark? I know I was supposed to be helping you out today, but Dr. Banner just texted me saying he was looking at my project and knocked something over and now the lab is—“ the guy squints at his phone, looks bewildered, “—engulfed in blue flames. His words. I think I gotta—“

Tony laughs—laughs, something that Harley hasn’t heard in the months he’s been coming to this shop—and waves his hand. “Go ahead, Pete.”

The guy—Pete—looks up with a sheepish smile, falters when he sees Harley, and only looks conflicted for a few seconds before he spins around and goes back into the office, emerging a few quick moments later with a bag slung over his shoulder and a pep in his step. “See you later, Mr. Stark!” he calls, before making his way out of the shop without looking back.

“He seems...” Harley trails off, effectively distracted from the clawing panic that had been climbing up his throat before. “Happy?”

“Yeah, usually is,” Tony says, sounding fond, lighter than Harley’s ever heard before. “He works with my husband, but he goes to ESU, which is closer to here than to the lab. Doesn’t have a car or anything, so he usually just hangs out here and gives me a hand after his classes until I can give him a ride. But, sometimes, shit happens and he has to take the subway instead.” He turns back to the car, already on the jack and raised up enough to deal with the tires, no longer seems inclined to talk about price or anything as he gets to work on the front driver’s side tire. Instead, he asks, “What school do you go to?”

Harley falters. “Uh, what?”

Tony glances over at him, quirking a brow. “School, kid. Which one?”

“Right. I, uh—“ Harley stops, tries to wrack his brain for a quick, easy answer. After a moment that’s definitely too long, he replies with, “NYU.”

Tony frowns at him. “Really?”

Harley looks away, clears his throat. “Yeah. NYU.”

“Alright,” Tony murmurs, turning back to the tire. “Let’s say I believe you. I don’t, ‘cause that was the most obvious lying I’ve ever seen, but let’s say I do. What do you study? What classes are you taking right now?”

“Why do you care?” Harley fires back, a harsh bite in his tone.

Tony huffs a laugh. “You’re a kid, that’s why. Lying can’t mean anything good.”

“I’m nineteen,” Harley tells him. “Legally, an adult.”

“Still a teenager,” Tony says. “You gonna try to answer the questions, or are you gonna tell me the truth?”

Harley clenches his jaw, grinds his teeth. “It’s not your business.”

Tony falters, hands pressed against the tire that he’s already gotten off. Eventually, he turns around. “Alright,” he says. “Not my business. That’s fine. How about we talk cost instead, hm? Tires aren’t cheap, kiddo.”

And that panic from before comes crawling back, sneaking its way up Harley’s spine as he tightens his fingers around the bills still clutched in his hand. He holds it out and pretends he isn’t visibly shaking. “This is all I have.”

“I’m not taking your money,” Tony tells him.

Harley thinks there are tears burning the backs of his eyes. “Then why the fuck did you bring up cost? Just, take it, and I’ll—I’ll head out, and—“

“I have a feeling,” Tony cuts in, “that, whatever it is you’re lying about, it’s not safe. I have a feeling that you’re not safe. Am I right to assume that?”

Harley blinks at him, wide and misty in the eyes.

Tony hums. “I’ll take that as a yes. Come on, let’s sit down and chat.”

There are walls that you build up—a foundation of bricks placed at seven years old when you’re abandoned by a father you thought loved you. Walls that become higher, more reinforced, as years upon years of shit goes by. Harley has a fortress built around him, to keep people out, to keep himself in.

It takes thirty seven minutes for Tony to carefully pick at those walls until they crumble, and it leaves Harley sobbing in a way that he hasn’t let himself do since Emilee died, heaving for breaths that ache and burn his lungs and make his head spin, tears pooling in his eyes and streaming down his face in rivers. Tony looks heartbroken as Harley chokes it all out, tells him everything, admits that he’s been sleeping in his car for over a year now and has nobody left.

Pulls him into a hug, a soft and warm kind that Harley would never assume the brooding mechanic was capable of, and tells him, “It’s gonna be fine, kid,” and brushes callused fingers through Harley’s hair like his mama used to do. When he’s done and exhausted, Tony offers him a place to stay for the night, and Harley is too emotionally drained to refuse, allows himself to be guided to Tony’s car and given a ride to a house that’s only five minutes from the shop.

Dr. Banner—Bruce, apparently—doesn’t seem all that surprised when he gets home, just smiles kindly at Harley and puts on a movie while Tony makes something to eat. When Harley, with his knees curled to his chest and a blanket draped over his shoulders, hoarsely asks why they’re being so nice to him, Bruce softly tells him, “Tony and I had pretty rough childhoods, too. When we see kids that need support, or a home, or even just a hot meal, we do what we can to help. Did it for Peter, and now he’s top of his class at ESU and on track to graduate early. Helped out Harry, too, and that kid is gonna change the world.”

Harley is still confused.

“Sometimes,” Bruce goes on, “all you need is someone to tell you that you’re gonna make it to the other side. That’s what we try to do.”

He eats—more than he’s had to eat in a long, long time. Sleeps on the couch because he refuses to take their guest room, and he has breakfast with them, too. When he goes to leave, though, Tony frowns. “Where are you gonna go?”

“Back to my car, I guess,” Harley says, shrugging.

“That isn’t safe,” Tony says.

Harley shrugs again. “I don’t really have a choice.”

Bruce looks at Tony, at Harley, and tells him, “We have the space. If you need somewhere to stay until you can get your own place, you can stay here.”

He says no. Of course he says no, but when he starts to leave again, he remembers that his car is still in the shop, remembers that his phone is dead and he was supposed to work today and his boss told him that if he was late again then he would be fired. Remembers that he got a hug for the first time in years last night and it made him feel safe in a way he can’t ever remember feeling before, and he turns on his heel with his jaw clenched and his head held high, makes his way back to the kitchen and says, “I have one condition.”

On Harley’s second day working at the shop with Tony, the door opens and two guys walks in, in the middle of a conversation that seems energetic and lively. One of them, Harley recognizes at Peter, the guy from before. The other, he doesn’t know. They both stop when they see him, exchange quick glances before making their way over. “Hi,” Peter says.

Harley has motor oil up to his elbows and smeared on his cheek and he doesn’t think he looks very presentable for meeting someone new, but he was raised to be polite. “Hi,” he replies, using a rag to try and wipe the oil from his skin.

“I’m Peter. This—” he gestures to the other guy, “—is Harry. You’re Harley, right?” At Harley’s slow blink, Peter assures, “Dr. Banner mentioned you yesterday, and I remember seeing you, last week, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Harley says. “I’m Harley. Harley Keener.”

Peter grins, and Harry shifts a bit awkwardly from foot to foot but still manages a friendly sort of smile. “Cool,” Peter says. “Do you need any help?”

Harley looks down at the engine he’s been fixing up, knows that he doesn’t need help, no, but probably wouldn’t mind the company since Tony had to take a call and ran off to run an errand right after. “Not really,” he says. “But, you can... sit down, or something, I guess? I’m almost done with this, anyway.”

Harry cocks his head slightly, looks at the engine for a moment and then at Harley again, before looking at Peter with a slightly bigger smile. “We can sit,” Harry says, taking Peter by the wrist and leading him over to the nearest bench.

Turning back to the engine, Harley tries not to notice the weird sort of silence that’s hovering over them. He’s not good at conversation starters, really, and he feels oddly nervous, like he wants to impress them. Can’t really place why.

“So,” Peter starts, breaking the little bought of nothing. “Where’re you from?”

It’s a simple question. It’s a loaded answer.

Harley stops and considers it for a moment.

“Tennessee,” he eventually responds. “But... I think I like it better here.”

When he looks, there’s somewhat knowing smiles pulling on both Peter’s and Harry’s lips, like they can see through his answer, read it for what it really is. He doesn’t mind, he realizes. His walls were already broken through, and he doesn’t want to go back to hiding himself behind the rubble that remains. Rather, he wants to use that rubble and build himself a bridge.

Maybe, that way, he can make it to the other side.

#my writing #harley keener #tony stark #irondad #bruce banner #peter parker #harry osborn #science bros #parksborner #but it's pre slash #might write a part two if i get inspiration

55 notes · View notes

janeofcakes · 4 years

Text

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Ten Feet from the Pack: Chapter 4

Hey, y’all! This chapter was a fun one for me to write and I hope it brings you all as much joy as it has me, especially in this crazy time. I hope this whole story brings you all pleasure and a way to escape for a bit. Love you all.

***

Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight. Just a touch of the fire burning so bright and I don't want to mess this thing up. I don't want to push too far. Just a shot in the dark that you just might be the one I've been waiting for my whole life. So baby I'm alright, with just a kiss goodnight.

--Lady Antebellum, Just a Kiss

The keys of his laptop click away as John types some notes on Witch Hazel, or Anthea, as her parents call her. She had sprained her toe just after the day’s practice. It is John’s fourth week with the team and the ladies are gearing up for the first bout of the season. Hits are harder, skates roll faster, and the chance for injury is growing. Although, and much to her chagrin, Anthea’s injury is not the result of skating. Sherlock had called practice, gathered everyone for the post-practice huddle and then sent them off to clean up. Anthea had the misfortune of slamming her foot into one of the stadium seats. When she kicked it. She was pissed off about something and chose to express herself in an usual and unwise way, as it turned out. In fact, it was the first time John had seen her express any emotion. She typically has her nose buried in her mobile and gives one word answers to every question.

John finishes the last of his notes when there is a knock on his door. He grants entrance as he types the last few words and closes the file. He stands as Bloody Mary Morsten walks in, closing the door behind.

“Hello, Mary,” John walks around the desk to face her properly. “What can I do for you?”

“Quite a bit, I’m sure,” she replies, eyes quickly roving over his body. “I need you.”

She pauses a little too long before continuing and John instantly begins to feel leery. This is not the first time she has flirted with him since they met. She takes a step closer and John wishes there was nothing at his back so he could inch away.

“I think I may have hurt myself during practice.”

“Oh?” John switches to doctor mode, immediately forgetting his unease. “What happened?”

Mary takes another step closer and pulls open the jacket she had held tightly closed up until this point. Not a stitch lies beneath. John does step back, what little he can, startled and trying desperately not to show it. Judging from the small smile on Mary’s blood red lips and the amused gleam in her eyes, he is failing.

“Would you take a look?” she sways her hips and her breasts move with them. She continues in a low, sultry voice. “You can...touch them if you want. In fact, I think you’d better give me a full body examination.”

She steps forward, undressing him with a fiery look. When her focus returns to his eyes, she is pleased to see they are focused on her bosom, but soon realizes they are looking at something lower.

“Hm, I’m more concerned about this,” he bends to look closer at a dark bruise on her ribs just under her left breast.

“What?” she steps back to give him more room, completely thrown off by his remark. Mary peers down to see what he is referring to. “Oh, that’s nothing. Happened a few days ago in practice. What I’m more concerned about…”

“Does this hurt?” he presses gently.

“Jesus Christ!” Mary clamors for her ribs, one hand covering his.

“You have a bruised rib.”

“Oh,” she gasps, but the warmth of his hand under hers and on the cool skin under her breast reminds her why she paid this visit in the first place. She narrows her eyes to look at him hungrily. “You can make me feel better, Doctor. With one deep injection.”

She begins slowly sliding his hand upward, but he immediately pulls it away and takes the barest of steps back before bumping into his own desk.

“Never gonna happen,” he says in a flat tone. “You know the policy as well as I do.”

“Fuck the policy,” she growls, closing the gap and grabbing his waist to hold him steady as she crashes her body against his.

At that moment, the door to John’s office opens as someone knocks on it sharply and Sherlock Holmes walks into the room.

“Sorry to barge in, but Greg wants…” Sherlock stops dead and stares. His eyes dart from John to Mary, who jumped away to glare at him. Her jacket is wrapped tightly around her torso again, but there can be no question in Sherlock’s mind as to what was going on.

“The doctor was just looking at something for me,” Mary supplies angrily.

“I know exactly at what,” he says in a low and dangerous voice. “What the hell are you doing?”

John’s eyes widen. He had expected the coach’s question and ire to be directed at him, but he is staring pointedly at Mary instead.

“He’s cute. I just couldn’t resist,” she shrugs, unapologetically.

“See that you do,” Sherlock commands in a steady voice. Mary nods, glances at John one last time and then slinks out of the room. Sherlock turns his furious gaze from the now closed door to John.

“Let me guess,” Sherlock says as John opens his mouth.

“I know how this must look,” John interrupts, but the seething man cuts him off.

“She entered under the guise of some injury.”

“She does have a bruised rib,” John interjects in an unassuming tone. He is not about to get defensive about this, something he is not responsible for.

“And once inside, she exposed herself.”

“I’m putting her on IR for six weeks.”

“Six weeks?!” Sherlock bellows. John squares his shoulders and prepares for a fight, ready to defend his position to the end. But Sherlock surprises him, his expression becoming less angry and more thoughtful.

“Fine,” he says in a calm voice that is almost unsettling. “May I remind you of our position on fraternizing with the skaters? Yours is a position of authority.”

“And may I remind you that I would never put any patient in that situation,” John replies hotly. “None of that was my doing. Although, you seem to know that.”

“Indeed,” Sherlock admits after a beat. “Mary is one of our more aggressive players and not exclusively on the track. I’ve been expecting it.”

“Yeah? Well, you could’ve told me. Given me a little warning maybe,” John ‘s voice is rising in volume even as his mind says shit shit shit.

“I didn’t think it necessary,” Sherlock bites out.

“Oh, you didn’t, did you? But you’re more than willing to throw it in my face when it finally comes to a head. Fucking hypocrite.”

“I beg your pardon,” the coach is somewhere between fury and incredulity.

“I said you’re one to talk with the way you and Molly carry on,” John remarks in a loud voice, temper flaring.

Sherlock’s misty grey eyes turn to stone and his jaw sets like iron. He doesn’t move a muscle and yet, he suddenly seems about ten feet tall and towering over John. Still, the compact doctor does not back down, straightening to his full height as well. Sherlock has a good six inches on him, but John still cuts an imposing figure.

“Get out,” Sherlock growls. His voice is so low John can scarcely hear him and when he does, those two words tip the scale. John bends forward slightly cupping his ear.

“What? I didn’t catch that,” he straightens again and glares at the taller man. “Oh, are you angry because I had the balls to call you out? I don’t know how the others can ignore it like they do. Are you so important to the team that it doesn’t matter?”

John stares for a beat, giving the man the opportunity to defend himself. When he says nothing, John shakes his head and sneers in disgust.

“You are a coward and a hypocrite. You hold others fast to the rules while you break them as it suits you. You are pathetic, Mr. Holmes, and I’m going to put a stop to it.”

John pushes past Sherlock roughly and has his hand on the doorknob before he stops cold. He spins around quickly with an accusatory finger pointing right in Sherlock’s face. If the man wasn’t furious before, he is now. Sherlock glares down at John with a scowl on his face that sends ice shooting through John’s veins.

“This is my office,” John nearly shouts. “ You get out.”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

They continue to stare at one another, neither moving an inch. Sherlock finally rolls his eyes and huffs, shifting his feet impatiently.

“You’re in the way,” he says petulantly.

John doesn’t move. His gaze is focused on those soft grey eyes. Soft now in spite of the raised voices and insults. He can see so many emotions within them and he is intrigued. He can’t stop himself from looking and seeing, just seeing. Anger, regret, curiosity, respect, friendliness and interest, and lingering behind it all, panic? And just like that, John’s mood, the air in the room, everything changes. Lifts. The anger leaks out of John’s body and pools on the floor around his feet.

Sherlock, on the other hand, now seems to be annoyed in addition to furious. He rolls his eyes again while John stands fixed to the spot and studies him. Clearly frustrated, Sherlock steps forward and tries to muscle his way to the door, but John has none of it. After another try to no avail, the coach backs up with a long and angry sigh, and glares at John with his hands on his hips.

“You’re really starting to piss me off now.”

“Sherlock,” John says in a calm voice that even surprises him.

“What?” he answers in a clipped tone.

John looks at the man standing before him and suddenly it occurs to him that he has never actually seen Sherlock like this before. Even in a month of time here, he has always seen him in the gym shorts, tees and bandanas from practice. No one in meetings minds what he is wearing because he usually has afternoon practice post-meeting anyway. Why change?

But now he is wearing sleek black trousers and a bespoke, white button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, like some sort of well-dressed scientist about to begin an experiment. All he needs are goggles. And speaking of eyes, dark brown curls fall artfully around them, setting off pale skin and sharp cheekbones. John blinks once at this sight he has never before seen. He had not even considered what Sherlock’s hair might look like, always hidden under black, blue or dark purple bandanas. Never in his life would he have imagined what stands before him now and that is the precise moment that John realizes how little he knows about this man. Where did he come from? How did he get here? What exactly is his connection to Molly Hooper? Mrs. Hudson told him a lot during the conference, but it still seems like so little now when he suddenly wants to know everything about Sherlock Holmes.

“You see,” John finally answers almost playfully, “I don’t know you.”

“What?” Sherlock’s brow furrows, creating a small wrinkle right across the bridge of his nose. John’s brows and the corners of his mouth rise in tandem. That was clearly not what the coach expected to hear and John finds it incredibly amusing. And oddly endearing.

“I’ve gotten to know all of the ladies a bit in the last month, had lunches with Greg and Mike and other staffers, but I know virtually nothing about you.”

The wrinkle between Sherlock’s eyes deepens as he studies John. The corners of his mouth turn down as he searches John’s face and cocks a brow.

“I rather thought Mrs. Hudson already covered that,” he replies with some bitterness.

“She told me about your time with Rock City and about hiring you, what she saw in you and how she feels about you. She didn’t say anything else. I’d like to know you and hear it from you,” John tells him emphatically. “And I can tell you about myself too.”

“I already know everything about you,” Sherlock says haughtily.

“Oh, I’m quite sure you don’t.” John chuckles

“I seriously doubt that,” Sherlock retorts smugly.

“Yeah, right, I know. You read people, but it’ll be my voice and my perspective. There’s value in that that your method ignores.”

Sherlock looks at him thoughtfully for a moment, considering his words carefully. John can practically hear the cogs turning. The light in the man’s eyes changes with his decision and even sparkles with intrigue just a little. The prospect of a new puzzle to work out, perhaps?

“All right,” he acquiesces.

“Okay. So...dinner?”

“Dinner?”

“Let’s have dinner.”

“What? Tonight?”

“Yes,” but then John back peddles, “unless you have plans.”

“No,” Sherlock rushes to say before trying for a more casual tone. “I mean, nothing specific.”

“Good. We could leave from here around six?”

“I can do that.”

“Great. I’ll drive and you pick the place. I don’t know enough about the city yet to find something suitable.

Sherlock chuckles good-naturedly and almost slyly too.

“I know the perfect place”

***

Sherlock sits at his desk, his eyes wide and focused on the screen of his laptop. He is making notes on a new play, but his fingers have inexplicably stopped moving. He stares right at the words, the cursor blinking behind the last one and yet, he sees nothing. His mind, that should be filled with skaters on the track dodging this way and that, bringing his plan to life in his thoughts, is awash with John Watson instead.

He presses his lips together in a thin line and glances at the clock on the wall. He’s nervous. Why the hell is he nervous? It’s not like it’s a date. It’s nothing. It’s just two colleagues having dinner to chat and get to know one another. Never mind Sherlock has been avoiding John as much as possible for the specific purpose of not getting to know him. After all, the less John knows about him the better, and vice versa. Mrs. Hudson has already told him enough. Sherlock rolls his eyes. She means well, but she does meddle.

Sherlock raps his fingers on the desk one by one in a distinct pattern. He glances at his notes. At the clock. Back to his notes. Goddammit. It’s nothing. Nothing! John merely made a suggestion and Sherlock agreed. He did not ask him out. Just because Sherlock is going to his favorite restaurant with a gorgeous man does not mean… Oh, fuck. Sherlock drops his face into his hands and sighs.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

His head snaps up at the light tap on his door as it opens. Sherlock’s eyes are wide again and he swallows audibly as John steps in with a warm smile on his face.

“Hey. Sorry I’m late. I was finishing up some notes,” he pauses to take in Sherlock’s appearance and tilts his head slightly. “You okay?”

“Fine,” the coach clears his throat. “I’m fine. Just doing the same.”

“Oh. Are you finished?” John gestures out to the hall. “I can wait if you need more time. You could just give me a call.”

“No, no,” Sherlock says quickly, suddenly on his feet and yanking the suit jacket from his chair, “it’s a good stopping point.”

He pulls on his jacket and closes the office door after they are both through. The two men walk side by side down the hall. Having regained his typical ease and confidence, Sherlock looks sideways at John with a smirk on his lips.

“I hope Italian is all right. Now’s your last chance to protest.”

“Sounds delicious,” the doctor replies with a grin.

***

The car ride to Angelo’s is comfortable and has Sherlock feeling as though he has known John for much longer than he actually has. There is no insipid small-talk, only easy silence interrupted by Sherlock’s directions and occasional tidbits about the neighborhoods they pass through. He does tell John that Angelo is an old friend and that they met almost as soon as Sherlock moved back to Detroit. It has been a long day at the stadium and Sherlock was starving. He had gotten in his car and just started driving. It was late enough that the staff had gone, but Angelo let him in and the two had talked for two hours while Sherlock ate an enormous bowl of pasta.

John laughs at the story and Sherlock’s stomach does a flip.

Angelo catches sight of the tall coach and his doctor as soon as they enter the little restaurant. The robust man is at Sherlock’s side in an instant, throwing his arms around him like he would a son.

“Sherlock, my boy, why have you been away so long?” he laughs. “I thought this was the off-season, yeah?”

“Skating doesn’t stop because there aren’t any bouts,” Sherlock chuckles.

“Neither does eating,” Angelo reminds knowingly. Is it Sherlock’s imagination or did John just glance at his slender frame? Probably thinks he is too thin like everyone else, Sherlock thinks as he shakes it off.

Angelo takes a few steps back to look the two men over and then he’s shaking John’s hand.

“But now you think of old Angelo and bring your date to the best restaurant in all of Detroit,” he winks obviously at Sherlock.

“He’s not my date,” Sherlock says quickly in a clipped tone, feeling his cheeks growing hot and hoping they aren’t as pink as they feel.

“Oh, sure. Of course he isn’t,” Angelo winks at John conspiratorially. “Come. I’ll take you to his table.”

Angelo pulls John along as they introduce themselves to one another. Sherlock follows in silence. He rolls his eyes once John’s back is turned and brings a hand to his face, pinching lightly between his eyebrow and cheekbone. He drops the hand quickly and grins, trying to look nonchalant when John looks back at him suddenly. Angelo presents them with a candle and bottle of wine after they are seated at a quiet table in the corner. John has a wide grin on his face while the man fusses over them and Sherlock becomes the focus of that smile once Angelo has gone.

Another flip.

“He’s quite the character, isn’t he?” John laughs, waving a hand toward the candle.

“He is very boisterous, yes,” Sherlock replies mildly, wondering how to defuse the situation, but John surprises him and not for the first time.

“It’s delightful,” he smiles. He might have said more, but their server interrupts to give them menus and tell them about the specials. A moment later finds Sherlock studying John rather unabashedly as the doctor scans the menu. He would stop, but John does not seem to notice.

“The ravioli al forno is very good,” Sherlock offers. John’s eyes rise from the menu to gaze at him. “The alfredo sauce is legendary.”

“Legendary?” John laughs. “How do you figure that?”

“Angelo has won more awards locally and nation-wide than any other.”

“Well, that is legendary, isn’t it?” John replies from behind his water glass. “I think that’s made my choice for me. And you?”

“Cheese and spinach ravioli. Can’t do without it.”

John opens his mouth to speak, but the server is back with bread and olive oil. The young man makes lame conversation as he prepares the oil, mixing in fresh black pepper and parmesan. By the time he has finished and taken their orders, Sherlock is ready to tell him to piss off. John must sense the tension because he remains silent, merely studying Sherlock while he sips his wine as if he is giving Sherlock a chance to cool down.

After a minute or so, John places the glass on the table and leans back in his chair casually. Sherlock cannot explain it, but he feels totally at ease with this man. He narrows his eyes and leans back in his own chair to suss out why.

“You said you met Angelo when you came back to Detroit,” John begins, “so you lived here before.”

Sherlock’s eyes pop open wide and he doesn’t even try to hide his surprise. Most people would need a fact like that to be pointed out and not draw the conclusion from just ordinary conversation.

“Oh, Doctor,” a smile spreads slowly across Sherlock’s lips, “you not only see, you observe.”

“I learned to watch and listen to everything over my years in medicine,” John shrugs, ducking his head at the praise.

Once again, their intrepid server appears to derail the conversation. Fortunately, more of his other tables are full now and he gives them their salads relatively quickly. They each unroll utensils from napkins and begin to eat. As Sherlock closes his mouth around a honey mustard-laden tomato, John looks at him again with the barest hint of a smile.

“So?” he rests his elbows on the table and brings his hands together, fork still in the fingers of his left hand. Sherlock brings a cloth napkin to his lips and blots away a bit of salad dressing. He takes a deep breath in and straightens his spine. Into the breach.

“I was born here,” he says simply. “In a suburb. Our house was on a cul de sac. It was one of those storybook neighborhoods. Everyone knew each other, the schools were close, we skated to the playground.”

“Skated? You skated even back then?”

“Oh, yes,” Sherlock answers. He watches John eat a bite of his salad and decides to push his luck. If John is asking him about his past, he may as well do the same. It may not be the best move, but he is willing to take the risk of revealing more of his deductions to learn even more about John Watson. “You’re an only child.”

John stops chewing and locks eyes with him. For a moment, Sherlock is afraid he has overstepped and his heart stops as he waits for John’s expression to turn into a scowl. But John just starts chewing again and flashes that brilliant smile after he swallows.

“How could you possibly know that?” he shakes his head with a laugh.

“Behavior,” Sherlock tells him. “You are very independent and driven. You may work well with others, but have set ways of doing things. You speak of your parents fondly, but not of siblings.” He pauses, the corners of his mouth turning up and a mischievous gleam in his eye. “I’m not wrong.”

“No, you’re not,” John supplies. “My parents would’ve liked another child. They thought I needed a playmate, but I did fine on my own. I had a lot of friends.”

“Mine too. It just never worked out for them,” Sherlock admits grimly, remembering how he used to ask his mother when he would have a brother. He was too young to understand at the time. Sherlock turns his gaze back to John and continues. “Then the Hoopers moved in next door. I was six and Molly was five. We were instant friends. We did everything together. Neither of us really had any family. Grandparents dead and the like, so we spent holidays together. We would have one at my house and the next at hers.”

Sherlock pauses to sip from his wine glass. John is looking at him with rapt attention like he is the most interesting person on the planet. Sherlock tries not to dwell on this and also tries desperately to ignore the flip in his belly.

“At Christmas, when I was eight, our parents gave us skates. We couldn’t wait until spring,” he smiles at the memory. “We’d put them on sometimes just to feel the weight of them on our feet and that pull at our legs. We would stand in our bedrooms and balance on one foot, then the other. We’d walk around the room on our toe stops,” he looks at John and leans forward over his salad as though telling a secret. “We had to do it quietly so our parents wouldn’t find out we had them on inside the house. It really was a great way to master footwork without even realizing.”

Their server suddenly appears, earning him a glare from Sherlock. But he bites his tongue and hands the young man his picked-over salad. Sherlock finds himself excited to continue, which is odd because he doesn’t usually offer information about himself to others. This whole conversation is odd. It is like talking to Molly, only different somehow. He cannot quite put his finger on it. It is certainly just as comfortable as talking to her.

“Molly and I used to walk to the library in the snow after school to look at journals and magazines,” Sherlock says after the server has gone. He pops a ravioli into his mouth, his eyes sparkling. “We learned all about bearings and wheels and the tools we would need to make adjustments. Then Molly came up with shoveling driveways and using the profits to buy what we needed to be real professionals. Or, at least, what the minds children thought professionals would need. We weren’t far off though.”

“You did all this when you were seven and eight?” John asks in disbelief.

“It was the late 80s,” Sherlock shrugs. “I don’t know what it was like in London, but things were pretty lax and the suburb was like a small town where nothing bad happens. They all knew us and we just went around the cul de sac and up the street, not far at all. Our parents knew it was safe and that we could be trusted. Mom used to say I was an adult at five.”

Sherlock smiles at the memory almost wistfully. When he meets John’s eyes again, the doctor wears the same expression. John swallows a bite and props his elbow on the table to rest his chin on one hand.

“So when did you and Molly get into derby?” he asks with interest.

“We saw a match on TV once.”

“The bouts are televised?”

“On local channels. Nation-wide during the championship,” Sherlock chuckles at John’s wrinkled brow. “Don’t worry if you’ve never noticed. It’s rather eclipsed by the Stanley Cup playoffs, but it pulls in decent viewership.”

“I’ll have to look for that this year,” John smiles.

“You’ll be front and center this year,” Sherlock smiles back.

“So the bout you saw,” John shifts in his seat to move closer to the table, closer to Sherlock. He can see the excitement in the man’s eyes. Another flip. “How old were you then?”

“Nine and ten,” Sherlock answers, silently cursing his damn stomach. “From then on we started blocking each other. Sometimes we got other kids in the neighborhood to block while we jammed.”

“They just stood there and let you slam into them on roller skates?” John’s mouth hangs open in disbelief.

“We were kids,” Sherlock shrugs again. “We were invincible.”

“Oh, god. That’s fantastic,” he covers his mouth and leans back in his chair. He is back to the table again in seconds and seems like he is leaning even further over his plate. “Did you ever get in trouble?”

“No, not really. We all had some good scrapes, but never anything serious,” Sherlock drinks some wine, replaces his glass and waves his hand as a means of transition. “We kept at it for years. We started learning everything - rules, techniques, strategies - everything. We were going to be championship skaters together.”

He pauses and lets his gaze fall to the candle, staring almost unseeing.

“And then when I was a freshman in high school, the P.E. teacher told me derby was a sport exclusively for women.”

John sits back in his chair and his shoulders drop. His expression full of pain and empathy, he waits for Sherlock to continue. He looks exactly how Sherlock imagines he did when Coach Jones broke the news.

“I was devastated. And I felt incredibly stupid.”

“Stupid?” John’s voice is hushed. “Oh no.”

“Somehow, in all the bouts we’d watched, I never deduced that all female teams meant it was a women’s only sport,” Sherlock pauses thoughtfully and marvels at how caught up John is. He has never had such an attentive audience and his damn stomach flips again. “I told Molly as soon as I got home.”

“What did she do?”

“What could she do? She thought it was unfair and hated seeing my dreams crushed. She was angry as hell, but she couldn’t change it. Neither could I.”

John leans in again, elbows on the table and hands together in between, his fingers entwined. His face is so open and sincere. Another flip.

Shit.

“What did you do?”

“I started training with Molly even more so she could be the best skater derby had ever seen,” Sherlock replies resolutely. “I gave her advice and told her about the strategies I’d been dreaming up.”

“You coached her.”

“I suppose so,” he reflects, “but I would never have called it that at the time. Molly joined the derby class when she started high school. Coach Jones offered it after school, unofficially, of course. I think he only did it because Detroit has two teams, and because he liked it. Midway through the year, and at Molly’s urgence, he let me join in coaching. I took a year of community college for Molly’s senior year so we could keep training.”

“You put off university for Molly,” John restates in what looks like awe. Sherlock simply nods and John shakes his head with a quiet laugh. “You’re amazing.”

Sherlock’s fork stops half way to his mouth and he raises his eyes to meet John’s. The moment hovers thickly in the air between them. Sherlock cannot tear his eyes from his colleague’s face. The doctor looks content and relaxed, his eyes full of admiration. Sherlock clears his throat and shrugs his shoulders.

“We both went our separate ways once she graduated. Molly to Iowa because there was a derby program in athletics, not to mention the Old Capitol City team outside of the U, and I went to Wisconsin,” Sherlock pauses a moment to chew the bite waiting on his fork. John just sips his wine patiently. “She was recruited right out of school, as you know, and then negotiated her way back to Detroit, with Mrs. Hudson’s help.”

“Yes, Martha told me about that. All sounds like a damn nuisance,” John remarks.

“It is,” Sherlock rolls his eyes and takes a drink.

“So Molly started living her dream. What did you do?”

“I...got married.”

John nearly spits a mouthful of wine across the table, swallowing quickly and rushing the glass to his lips to catch any drips. His eyes blink wide.

“Does that surprise you? Do I not seem the marrying kind?”

“No. I mean,” he clears his throat with a little cough. “It’s certainly not what I expected.”

“Molly stayed in the midwest. Well, Ohio before heading back to Detroit and I followed Victor to California for grad school. I hadn’t intended on studying, but I was bored with my job within five minutes and Victor thought I’d enjoy school. Molly and my parents did too, for that matter.”

“And what did you study?”

“Physics.”

“Ah,” John grins cheekily, “makes sense with all the strategies, cuts and turns, and all those jumps.”

“So you have been paying attention in practice,” Sherlock smirks.

“Couldn’t help it, could I?” John says, puffing out a breathy chuckle. Sherlock hesitates a moment and then presses on. He might as well finish the story.

“We both finished in two years and got jobs. I started teaching at Stanford and Victor joined the family business practicing law,” Sherlock sighs in resignation at the memories. “He was expected to attend a lot of formal functions and parties, and needed someone attractive and poised on his arm. I fit the bill, but he wanted someone with no life of his own and nothing to do but help him look good. What Victor wanted was a trophy wife and I did not fit that bill. To make matters worse, he never understood my relationship with Molly and hated our marathon phone calls once a week. We divorced a year after graduation.”

“He was a fool,” John all but whispers, shaking his head. His expression is soft and his eyes look almost sad. Sherlock’s stomach flips again and much more dramatically than usual. He only just hides his astonishment from the doctor. To that end, he rushes on before John has a chance to notice and before Sherlock can think much about what it could all mean.

“My life was in tatters and I wasn’t happy teaching. I still had friends, but felt so alone. That’s when Molly convinced me to try and find a coaching position on a derby team,” he laughs to himself. “I was sure I wouldn’t even get any interviews, but they were actually anxious to meet with me. Turned out I had a reputation for being the man who trained Molly Hooper.”

“Ha-ha! Way to go, Molly,” John laughs. “So you coached for a bit somewhere else and then Mrs. Hudson hired you?”

“Something like that. I was an assistant coach because I hadn’t coached formally before, and I was so young. No one was about to give me my own team,” Sherlock corrects. “Mrs. Hudson took a big chance making me head coach at 28.”

“She told me that too,” John grins.

“I’m sure she did,” Sherlock snickers.

“And how you brought the team back from ruin. Very admirable.”

“Mrs. Hudson exaggerates.”

“No, I don’t think she does,” John replies with a knowing look. “You forget I’ve met with all the staffers. Paul Dimmock, Daniel and Craig, Greg - they all say it.”

“What about you?” Sherlock asks suddenly, eager to change the subject.

“What about me?” John counters.

“Did you grow up in London?”

“I did, yeah. There weren’t a lot of kids in my neighborhood, so I spent most of my time on my own. That’s how my parents discovered my aptitude for knowledge,” John dabs at the corners of his mouth with a napkin. Sherlock licks his own lips and his eyes fall to John’s for just a moment. The barest hint of a moment is all he allows himself and his damn stomach flips again. He sighs quietly.

Sherlock is in trouble.

“They found me in what doubled as a library and office when I was four. There I was, under the desk with a book in my lap. They thought it odd because it was decidedly not a picture book. It wasn’t until I started talking to them about the events described in that book, and others, that they realized I was reading them. And quickly too,” John puffs out a breath and looks away, out into the restaurant at other patrons as if in disbelief at his own memories. “They had been teaching me letters, sounds and colors, things of that nature, for a week or so. There weren’t any nursery schools close enough to our house and they’d taken it upon themselves to teach me the basics. Meanwhile, I used what they had imparted upon me and taught myself how to read.”

Sherlock watches John in fascination. There is absolutely no sense of superiority or condescension in his tone or manner. If anything, John seems almost dumbfounded by his own intelligence. It is both charming and odd. He is in a position to have become an incredible asshole and yet, he is friendly and unassuming. Sherlock wonders at how John’s parents kept him grounded. They must have been good people indeed.

“Did they test your IQ or send you to boarding school or…” Sherlock trails off. He feels like a nosy idiot. John must think him a fool, especially since he already said his parents didn’t enroll him in nursery school - is that preschool, he wonders - based on geography. They couldn’t have had the funds for such things if they needed a school nearby. As if reading his mind, John shakes his head slightly, taking a drink of water.

“We weren’t a wealthy family,” he begins, “but what my parents were rich in was connections. My mum’s best friend was a tutor, so she came to work with me in the evenings. When I was old enough, dad got me into an upscale public school. He coached the entire board at cricket in the summer. They even talked my way into uni and medical school. My marks and accomplishments helped too, but it was mostly them. They knew everyone and everyone thought the world of them.”

John wears a fond smile and has a far away look in his eyes. He clearly shares the opinion and loves them dearly. But suddenly he sobers and the wistfulness vanishes.

“My dad was diagnosed with cancer my last year of medical school and died just after I graduated. With mum it was an auto accident,” he looks at Sherlock and smiles again. “That, and boredom eventually drove me to America and hockey. Anything else you want to know? Or do you know it all now between Mrs. Hudson and your deductions, which I still find amazing, by the way. You have to tell me how you do it.”

Sherlock’s lips quirk up at the corners. He looks down again at the candle flickering on the table between them.

“Maybe another time,” he says coyly. Oh, god. What is he doing? He raises his eyes to meet John’s. “Have you ever married?”

What is he doing? What the fuck is he doing? He is not flirting with John Watson. He is absolutely not flirting. He is simply engaging him in perfectly normal conversation.

Right.

Fuck.

“Eh, no,” John answers slowly, mild confusion on his face. He is probably trying to figure out what the hell Sherlock is playing at. Sherlock glances toward the restroom. Maybe he should excuse himself, slip into the shadows and hope the moment has passed by the time he returns. Or maybe he could climb through the small window by the sinks.

“I’ve had the odd relationship over the years, but have never been anywhere close to marriage,” John says, distracting Sherlock from his escape plans. Strangely, John appears to be completely at ease again as though Sherlock hadn’t said anything so idiotic at all and the coach is thankful for it. “Didn’t even bother dating in California, which worked out since I didn’t stay long. But now…”

John stops short. He stares at Sherlock a moment with wide eyes, his muscles tense. He looks as though he has either given himself away or been caught in the cookie jar. What had he been about to say?

“But now?” Sherlock prompts him. He shouldn’t, but cannot help himself. John is the most interesting man he has ever met.

“I didn’t miss much,” John amends and takes a quick drink of water. His eyes are shifty and he looks away pointedly. That is absolutely not what he was going to say and Sherlock knows it. And John knows he knows it.

Sherlock’s lips curl into a knowing smirk, but he does not have the chance to speak because Angelo is suddenly at their table. He asks about dinner and if they would like dessert or more wine. Both give him their compliments and turn down both offers. John goes on a bit about the alfredo and Sherlock can’t blame him. It is amazing.

In the end, John suggests coffee and Angelo is more than happy to oblige. Once the cups are delivered to the table and the restaurant’s proprietor gone, the two men talk and laugh together. They share stories they haven’t in years and even ones they have told no one before. Sherlock, for one, cannot believe the evening is real. He has never experienced anything quite like it. Molly is the only person he can talk to this freely. It does not make any sense, but he feels he has known John Watson for just as long and can trust him just as much. There is one very important difference, however. He has never wondered if Molly’s hair is as soft as it looks. Nor has he wondered the same about her lips.

That is exactly why Sherlock has avoided John since that first day they met. He knew this would happen and he will not allow entanglements. John has attended nearly every practice and Sherlock has all but run from the track each time to keep from talking to the doctor and risking a conversation just like this one. Now he is trapped. He could not escape John’s gaze if he wanted to and he cannot keep himself from glancing at John’s mouth or wishing he could touch him.

Sherlock sighs. His resolution to steer clear of romantic entanglements is in tatters. It faded before his eyes the moment he met John Watson and his heart did it whole-heartedly without even consulting him. Sherlock knows he should be furious with himself, but instead he feels delighted and almost refreshed. Happier than he has felt in some time, if he is honest. He is just as mystified by that and he is by John himself.

“Shit,” John mutters, glancing around the restaurant. “There’s no one here. What time is it?”

Sherlock looks around while John checks his watch. The dining room is empty. Sherlock wouldn’t be surprised if Angelo is the only other person there.

“Shit,” John repeats. “It’s after midnight. We should get out of here.”

As if on cue, Angelo reappears and insists they owe him nothing when they try to pay. The three men debate it all the way to the door, which Angelo unlocks to let them out. John and Sherlock finally concede and say goodnight as they step out onto the sidewalk. Soon they are walking to John’s car in a comfortable silence.

“Shall I take you back to the stadium?” John asks, breaking through the quiet spell in the air around them. “Did you drive in this morning?”

“No,” Sherlock answers, looking sideways at John. “Greg wanted to talk and we were both booked up all day. I hitched a ride in so we could talk on the way.”

“Well,” John nods, “I could take you to your flat, if you want.”

“My what?”

“Sorry. Your apartment,” John sneers the word and then laughs. “I’ll never get used to that word no matter how long I live here.”

Sherlock chuckles with him and opens the passenger door when they reach the car.

“You certainly don’t have to use it on my account,” he looks across the car roof with a bright smile. “I believe the proper term for my home is condo.”

John laughs jovially as they climb in.

“Thanks so much for that,” he replies sarcastically.

Sherlock gives John directions as they go and before long, they are parked outside his building. He turns to face John, but doesn’t quite meet his eyes. Once again, it feels like the end of a date where neither party can decide if he should kiss the other. God, how Sherlock wants to this time. Just the thought makes his stomach flip. Again. It is really starting to piss him off and yet, he hopes the feeling never stops.

“Thank you for driving me,” Sherlock says softly, “and for suggesting dinner. I enjoyed it very much.”

“Yeah, me too,” John smiles. “We should do it again.”

“I’d love to.”

The words are out of Sherlock’s mouth before he can stop them. He closes his eyes slowly, scolding himself. He has no idea how to explain that one away and just hopes John does not interpret it the way it sounded. Against his better judgement, Sherlock chances a look at the doctor. Instead of anger or utter confusion, John wears a brilliant smile without a hint of guile.

“Great. Let’s do it soon, and often,” he replies pleasantly. “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow.”

“Of course, John. I’ll see you there,” Sherlock says with a silent sigh of relief.

***

First of all, STEP OFF MARY. WTF. Stay away from MY doctor, says Sherlock. Am I right? They may not be an item in any way, shape or form at this point, but you can’t tell me Sherlock wasn’t jealous and not just ticked off at the policy violation. Aside from that, our boys move ever closer to one another. They have trusted one another with their pasts and started making a real connection. If Angelo has any say in that, they’re boyfriends already. Haha!

I hope you enjoyed the chapter, everyone. Stay safe and keep your stick on the ice. We’re all in this together. (*sigh* I miss hockey)

@zentris @toooldforthissh-stuff @shana-movershaker @melmey-fanfics @louise175dk @221b-carefulwhatyouwishfor @technicallywiseoncns @underestimatemethatwillbefun @jhamishw @weirdlittlegoofball @superwholockpotterincamelot @superwholocklmt @ladidragonuniverse @kittenmadnessandtea @srebrnafh @welcometomyharddrive @annecumberbatch @kingdomofbrokenhearts @philliphooper @whodwantmeasaflatmate @gloriascott93 @vvaticancameoss @cow-mow @echosilverwolf @spazzz32 @absentmindedstuff @swissmissing @shuukichan @maeliandmyself @wtgilsa @thetranslucentwallaby @red-pen-revolution @britishaccentfan @dischorde @plasticstrawsmuggler

#Sherlock Holmes #Sherlock #sherlockholmes #sherlock fanfic #sherlock au #john watson #johnwatson #johnlock #Johnlock fanfic #sherlock roller derby

17 notes · View notes

fericita-s · 4 years

Text

Mansion House Murder Party Chapter 3

Chapter 1 by @mercurygray

Chapter 2 by @jomiddlemarch

Thanks to @the-spastic-fantastic for being my beta and for coming up with a particularly impressive title of one of our beloveds.

Henry brought the letter with him, his only companion on the train ride down. In the past few years he had grown accustomed to being alone. It held more comfort than another person nearby. It was safer that way.

He had opened and then refolded it so many times it was prematurely worn, almost as delicate now as the picture Lisette had drawn of Emma and slipped in his Bible over a decade ago, right at Proverbs 31 (For her worth is far above rubies). That treasure he had unfolded often enough upon first receiving it, and then hardly ever again after leaving Mansion House. It remained in his Bible, along with other prayers and portraits and news clippings.

A folded up portion of the Alexandria Gazette proclaiming Union victory right at Colossians 3:15 (And let the peace of God rule…).

Jed's joyful letter declaring Mary well tucked in at Psalm 30:2 (O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me).

A formal photograph of a soldier who had been brought into the hospital and died before his lips could form a word, this the only item on his person. Henry used it to pray for all the fallen men each time he read 2 Timothy (…Our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel).

The corners of Revelation 21 (And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain) and Isaiah 11 (with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked) were now so worn as to be brittle.

He knew it was best he was alone. That he remain alone. His own thumb most often found Ephesians 4 (In your anger do not sin), a struggle he came back to again and again, no easier now though it was familiar. His anger felt like a constant companion, one that whispered and urged him beneath the surface to various actions, sometimes righteous, sometimes jealous, always seeking to control him.

It was best he was alone. Twice now, he had caused the death of another in his anger. And what if that predilection made manifest in new ways? Who else could be hurt by him if he let them get close?

On the way to Alexandria, he thought of who he would see there. Friends he had exchanged letters with and prayed for. Former friends who he prayed for but dared not write to. Especially the one who had been so hurt and confused by his coldness.

He unfolded the letter once more and smoothed his hand across it, as he had once done so often with the worried brows of soldiers trying to find peace. And he wondered if she had touched it too. Had Emma helped her sister write the letter? Did any part of her hope to see him? Did she even know of Alice’s schemes?

When he arrived, by coach and train and coach again, he had a brief sensation of being transported back in time. But Mary was now delicate in a way she hadn’t been even after typhoid left its mark. Jed was noticeably older, graying hair taking over. And Emma was on the arm of Frank, wedding ring loose on her finger, spinning and spinning as they all exchanged greetings in the front parlor where it seemed he had just yesterday carried Tom’s body through to her heaving sobs.

Thrust suddenly into the future, the hospital was now a hotel. The sensation was like being thrown from a horse, finding yourself suddenly and inexplicably on the ground after sitting confidently in the saddle. He noticed all this of his friends. What did they notice of him? His new suit, picked out and fussed over by his sister? The lack of a wife on his arm, paired up as they all were? His new dependence on glasses, not just for reading?

Alice floated into the room on the arm of a man whose face was familiar to Henry, though he couldn’t quite remember his name. Alice was resplendent in richly made silks, a feat that had been more gruesome and impressive during war time, but now seemed to be accomplished for the single purpose of bothering Emma and Frank. Emma’s cheeks had reddened at the sight of her and Frank’s brow furrowed, his irritation a visible thing. Henry wondered at the lack of greeting between them. Perhaps they had already spoken before being shuffled into this room with the rest.

Alice turned to the man on her arm and smiled, seeming to invite him to address the group but then quickly spoke over him before he could quite get the words out.

“Welcome back to Mansion House! Thank you kindly for responding to my letter; we are so grateful you could come even though what I sent was surely too cryptic to be understood.”

Henry thought he saw Jed roll his eyes. He definitely saw Mary give him a quick nudge with her elbow.

“I signed the letter with my maiden name so you would know me, but please, meet my husband. Some of you I believe have already made his acquaintance in this very location! Friends, this is Esteemed Lecturer and Researcher at Georgetown, and former Union Major, Doctor Percival Squivers!”

Jed was the first to respond. “Squivers! What a delight to see you again! I’m thrilled that Mansion House was not the end of your medical endeavors.”

Henry didn’t think Percival noticed the smile on Jed’s mouth and certainly not what it signified, utter bemusement and the start of merciless teasing. Emma and Frank nodded at Percival, and Henry thought they must have met before. The greeting was cold, but neither party seemed surprised by the presence of the other. Henry shook hands with Percival, murmuring politely, like he had to do on any number of occasions with acquaintances or former students not well remembered, but who he nevertheless wanted to greet well. Alice continued speaking.

“We have some more who will be joining us and I’ll explain more when they are here. For now, let’s have a nice visit with refreshments and the lovely remembrances of our time here in days long gone by.”

Alice walked across the room and sat in a chair, beckoning for those standing to take seats as well. Her husband made a move to sit down next to her and she caught his wrist before he did and looked up at him from under her long lashes.

“Bring up the sweet tea. And bring up Bullen; he’s likely in the kitchens seeing how much we’ve changed things here. Thank you, Dearest.”

Pervical went quickly and Alice continued to dominate the conversation. She told how the hotel had been brought back to its former glory, how she and her husband and her mother had continued on the legacy after Daddy’s passing, how her brother would love to come see them all and would soon, of course. Henry thought she seemed to be preventing them from speaking to each other or from asking her questions and thought what a skilled lecturer she would make if only the topic made sense.

Percival came back, but it wasn’t with sweet tea or lemonade or pecan crisps. He ran into the room towards his wife, squeaked “He’s dead!” And in a stunning display of déjà vu, fainted directly onto the floor with a crack that sounded like a gunshot.

Others noticed Percival’s bloody hands, his missing glasses, how Alice recoiled from him rather than trying to break his fall. But all Henry saw was Emma, moving towards the fallen man, Frank reaching for her waist but missing, a frown where a winsome smile usually was.

I tag @broadwaybaggins for the next chapter!

#mercy street #mercy street murders #mercy street murder party #henry #chapter 3

7 notes · View notes

glon-morski · 5 years

Text

How Shirakumo became Kurogiri - BnHA theory (Written before leaks of chapter 254 of BnHA)

Alright, so I think most of us have already read BnHA chapter 253, right? And we are all wondering: ‘is Kurogiri actually Shirakumo? Does he only have his Quirk/Quirk Factor as a part of his Warp? What exactly is the connection there?’ (Some of us may have seen leaks from chapter 254 and have some answers, but this was written before I saw those leaks myself and focuses more on the ‘how and why’ than the ‘who’ anyway, so fuck it, I’m posting it.)

To my knowledge, most people seem to believe that Kurogiri is either Shirakumo himself or just has his Quirk as a ‘base’ for Warp, since, well, that’s all the info we currently got.

Or is it? Isn’t there a bit more info we can gleam somewhere and try to figure this out from there?

Well, let’s just start with the obvious questions:

1) Can Kurogiri actually just be Shirakumo? As in, the same person? -> Honestly, I doubt it. Not only because Shirakumo is supposedly dead, but also because, as stated in the manga, Kurogiri’s personality is nothing like Shirakumo’s. Plus, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t think Shirakumo would ever become a willing villain and Kurogiri certainly seems on board enough. So that’s probably a no. (I’m basing this answer on the understanding that Shirakumo, as we saw him in Vigilantes, is Kurogiri, complete with having his memories, personality etc. That’s why it’s a no.)

2) If Kurogiri isn’t Shirakumo, it has to mean he just has his Quirk/Quirk Factor in him. It was just used to create Warp somehow, right? -> For now, this seems like the safest assumption. However, it brings with it a slew of different issues.

3) Wait, if Kurogiri’s Warp is made out of several other jumbled Quirk Factors… doesn’t that sort of mean he has multiple Quirks? -> In a way, I guess it does, yes.

4) If he has multiple Quirks… does that make him a Noumu? Sure, he isn’t mindless like the regular Noumu, but he could be a High End Noumu like the one Endeavor fought a while back. That one could talk and stuff, too! (Theory courtesy of a friend of mine, @barisaxifangirl ;3)

And well, this is where things get interesting. Because on one hand, it’s a possibility. As my friend pointed out, the High End Noumu was clearly intelligent, could talk and strategize (to a degree), had a personality etc. Sure, it didn’t exactly look human, but despite being generally humanoid, Kurogiri doesn’t, either. He’s made of mist for Christ’s sake!

However, there’s definitely one interesting thing to note. Look at High-Ends eyes. Do they remind you of someone? They sure do to me. They look just like Kurogiri’s, don’t they. Hell, his entire ‘face’ looks a bit similar to our mist man.

Though admittedly, it’s no longer the case once the ‘hood’ or whatever gets blown back.

Still, I guess it’s possible? But then that brings forward the following issue: if Kurogiri is, in fact a High-End Noumu like the one Ujiko is currently keeping in his lab and promising Tomura to give use of… why weren’t they used earlier? Why would All for One (AfO) give Shiragarki those earlier, weaker, dumber, basically ‘failure Noumu’ for his plans? From the way AfO was acting, it could be that he was just withholding better weaponry from him so he could learn, but really, that’s not the guy’s style. Yes, he wanted Shigaraki to grow and learn from his mistakes, but if one of his plans miraculously worked out and he ended All Might just a little bit earlier? Good for him, it’s what AfO wants, too. So there’s only one conclusion: Shigaraki didn’t get the High-End Noumu for instance when he went to USJ, or when he attacked Hosu or when he went after the training camp or when he was nearly caught (at which point AfO interfered himself and got himself arrested, though that was probably all a part of a plan of his, too, or at least I’m not putting it past him) because at that point in time, Ujiko didn’t have any. He only had the ‘failure Noumu’.

Why would he, though? Why would he have a weaker version if he could make the better one? The obvious assumption is that, of course, he couldn’t make one before. Which would cross the possibility of Kurogiri being a High-End, intelligent Noumu off the possibilities list. But that begs the question:

WHO/WHAT IS KUROGIRI?

Well, my theory is rather simple, at least for those who read the BnHA spin-off “Vigilantes”. Let’s cross-reference a bit.

The ‘main issue’, so to speak, in “Vigilantes” are so-called ‘instant villains’. People who sort-of lose their minds and go berserk along with their Quirk after being injected with a Quirk-stimulating drug called ‘Trigger’. So far, there were two types of ‘instant villains’ shown in the manga:

1) people who were (voluntarily or involuntarily) injected with Trigger and their Quirk went berserk, but changed back and/or clamed down after being knocked out

and

2) People who were genetically modified, making their bodies (possibly permanently) different

Furthermore, this is all done by an organization (called by the police the ‘Villain Factory’) who isn’t interested in actual profit. They don’t do it for money. In fact, the pinnacle of their experiments is supposed to be a being that ‘rivals All Might in strength’. Hmmm, doesn’t that sound familiar?

Right. The Noumu at USJ. Shigaraki Tomura’s ‘perfect weapon’ that ‘rivals All Might in strength’. So the Villain Fanctory is trying to make Noumus. And honestly, that’s a foregone conclusion, since the Bombers are pretty much almost the same as the Noumu from USJ, or the flying Noumu from Hosu, minus the ability to explode.

But let’s get back to this bioengineering business. Because this is more what we’re interested in in Kurogiri’s case. As already established, it’s unlikely Kurogiri is actually any form of proper Noumu. He’s something else.

So, what’s interesting to note in the Villain Factory’s human experimentation? Well, there’s currently two things: the bioengineering of living humans so that their bodies are stronger and can withstand lethal doses of Trigger, and the fact that they can seemingly make a human being (or a being close to human) from scratch. I’m talking about No 6 here, because in the few ‘flashback panels’ we get from him, he’s depicted as this sort of… I don’t know, blob? Definitely not a human kid, though. I mean, look at this!

So to me, this looks like they can engineer human bodies relatively from scratch. Add the fact that Number 6 has the Quirk of the Hero O’clock, who himself has lost his Quirk at some unknown point, and I think we can all agree that there’s absolutely no question as to whether or not AfO is involved with the Villain Factory, and likely has been from the very beginning.

So, how does all this relate to Kurogiri? Simple. I think that, while the Villain Factory’s main objective is to create a Noumu, Kurogiri might have been the pinnacle of their experiments, or maybe just an ‘accident gone right’ that instead of creating a Noumu just made a bioengineered human with a puppet-like mind in the sense that while he still has a personality, he’s mostly manipulated like a puppet to do the villain’s bidding. (Unlike the ‘made rom scratch’ Number 6, who has a personality and goals and I’m quite sure he’d go against the Villain Factory at one point if it was more beneficial for him. Unlike the Noumu, he’s not a literal puppet to be controlled.) And that, possibly, Shirakumo was not only the ‘base’ for his Warp Quirk, but also for his current body.

As stated above, part of the experiments involved bioengineering humans so their bodies could withstand lethal doses of trigger. And the physical changes that went with that currently seem very much permanent. Now, let’s take a look at something, shall we?

You may or may not agree with me, but my first thought when I saw Shirakumo was ‘damn, his hair looks a lot like Kurogiri’s mist-body’. And isn’t that a coincidence? Plus, he died and his body was taken away. If his corpse was actually substituted for another one before it was buried/cremated, I doubt people would notice, depending on when the switch occurred. And that’s without taking into account that since AfO has Dr. Ujiko working for him, who lets not forget is a working pediatrician, who’s to say he doesn’t have contacts among other doctors and EMCs? The man’s sphere of influence has always been humongous, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

That’s without even mentioning the question of whether or not Shirakumo was actually dead on the spot. I mean, yeah, he took a very nasty hit to the head… but humans have survived things like that in reality. I think in the BnHA universe, he’d have an even bigger chance to still be alive. Especially considering that it looks like the hit came to his forehead, knocking off his goggles, which could have provided at least some marginal protection. And then there’s the way Aizawa heard him through his speaker. I mean, yeah, it was kind of implied it was Aizawa’s imagination because the speaker was broken, but… honestly? I’m not convinced at all.

First of all, that speaker could have broken at any time during Aizawa’s fight considering what was going on. Second of all, Aizawa actually looked at it lying on the ground before he started to seriously fight and the speaker didn’t look damaged at all, much less as gone as it is in the next panel it shows up.

I may not be an expert on electronics, but I’m pretty sure that busted speaker would have been just as busted on the previous panel if it was that broken at that point. Which means it might not have been. Shirakumo might not have died on the spot. He might have just had a bad concussion and got buried and stuck, unable to get out. He might have been able to see the fight through some small crack in the debris or he might have just tried to give Shouta courage without seeing anything, literally blindly believing in him. And then, once Aizawa yelled that he did it… he just passed out. Not necessrily died, just passed out. Or he could have been clinically dead, meaning that he was indeed not breathing and had no heartbeat, but could still, actually be saved. In that scenario, it wouldn’t be hard for a doctor like Ujiko to pretend it’s already too late and make everyone believe it’s true, since he’s a professional. It wouldn’t be difficult, either, to properly revive the body later, at least enough that Shirakumo lived, though wasn’t necessarily conscious or able to defend himself. So yes, in my opinion, it’s possible Shirakumo was actually alive at that point, if barely. Possibly in a coma, but alive.

Which is important for more reasons than just ‘I don’t want Shirakumo to be dead’ and ‘barely anyone except Sir Nighteye dies on-screen in BnHA, so let’s keep it that way’. Because what do we know of the Quirk Factor? It’s a set of biological mechanisms that allow the usage of a Quirk. And Aizawa’a Erasure can ‘block the expression of the Quirk Factor’. Based on that particular wording, it is a gene, or a set of genes. At the same time, though, since Quirks are so diverse, it’s doubtful the gene(s) in question can actually be identified and it can be said ‘these genes here, in every human, are what allows them to have and use their Quirks’.

Here’s why the Quirk Factor being a (set of) gene(s) matters: whether it is via AfO’s Quirk or some other way (but most likely AfO’s Quirk), so far, all evidence points to the fact that a Quirk can only be taken from or given to a living being. Now, if you try a regular genetic experiment, you try to introduce new genetic material into a living being so it can assimilate and use it. That genetic material can be created from scratch, it doesn’t have to come from a living source, and even if it does, that living source is long dead by the time you isolate its DNA because killing it is just a necessary step of the process unless it’s bigger than a single cell. Of course, you can still take blood-samples and other cells from a dead human body and extract DNA from there, it works, but the quality is not that good anymore because all the biological processes that help keep the DNA stable and usable have stopped and the environment is no longer optimal for storing it and keeping it in a state where it can still be reused for expression later. You can still sequence it to find out what it came from, but it wouldn’t really be that usable to inject into another living being to be integrated into their genome and used.

Which in short means, if you want to extract the gene(s) that make up a Quirk Factor and give it to another living being/person so that they can assimilate and use them, your best chance at succeeding in it is if you take the Quirk Factor from a living human, too.

This in turn implies that if the ‘base’ for Kurogiri’s Quirk Factor is Shirakumo’s Quirk Factor… well, then Shirakumo had to have been alive at the time the Quirk Factor was taken from him.

Now let’s take it further. What’s the easiest way to use something as a ‘base’? Obviously, it would be to take that thing and pile whatever else you want to add to it on top. In terms of a Quirk Factor, that would mean piling every other Quirk into the body that already contains the Quirk Factor you want to use as a ‘base’. Because the body in which that Quirk Factor always thrived is probably the best environment for it to keep thriving and growing when other Quirks are piled on top. However, this probably puts immense strain on the body, as it basically implies forcing multiple mutations on the genome by adding additional genetic information. Keeping in mind that the Quirk Factor is probably the most varying gene from human to human, it makes sense that that would wreak heavoc on the body, possibly even kill it if the strain is too much. So the ‘vessel’ needs to be reinforced so it doesn’t break.

Now, we already spoke about the ‘instant villains’ from “Vigilantes” and particularly about those bioengineered ones. Those whose body was changed and strengthened to withstand lethal amunts of a drug to strengthen their Quirks so they wouldn’t die. The strain in this case it’s different, but the principle is the same: you want to strengthen the ‘vessel’. Looking at it like that, it’s possible that Shirakumo survived and was taken by the villains and then experimented on, so as to strengthen and ‘prepare’ his body for the actual Quirk experiment. Those experiments then changed his body.

But wait, something’s missing. If you look at the ‘bioengineered instant villains’ from “Vigilantes”, you’ll notice that the physical change of their body is directly connected to their Quirk. Just like a normal dose of Trigger makes the Quirk go wild, but you eventually turn back, only in this case, the change is permanent. But it’s still a change caused by your strengthened Quirk. So Shirakumo’s body shouldn’t, à priori, have changed due to the bioengineering itself, at least not physically and to a point that he’s unrecognizable.

One thing needs to be kept in mind, though: who’s to say Shirakumo also wasn’t pumped full of Trigger like the ‘bioengineered instant villains’ to strengthen his Quirk before others were added to the mix? If it was supposed to be just a ‘base’ and they wanted to trigger a ‘fusion of Quirks’ rather than just pile several Quirks together like it seems to be done in a Noumu, it seems natural to want to try and give one Quirk more power so it can actually (forcefully) interact with other Quirks and kind of force them into submission. That, or Trigger itself may be more mutagenetic (meaning capable of inducing mutations) and thus help the Quirk Factors to combine into one, rather than try to ‘coexist’ at the expanse of decimating the host body.

The fact that we barely know anything about Shirakumo’s Quirk ‘Cloud’ doesn’t help. All we do know is that he’s somehow able to summon/create a cloud he can sit on to fly around, eerily reminiscent of Son Goku from Dragonball (and even more accurately, the Monkey King Sun Wukong from The Journey to the West). But we don’t know where the cloud in question actually originates.

I already said Shirakumo’s hair strongly reminds me of Kurogiri’s mist-body in general. Now, it’s hard to really tell in the static panels of a manga, but taking it further, I almost feel like his hair has a cloud-like quality to it. And in turn, that makes me think it might be connected to his Quirk. Possibly where he creates his cloud from or something of the sort. I mean

1) it floats upright even in the rain and doesn’t seem to get wet, like a/his cloud

2) it seems to react to the wind by being blown every which way and changing shape as it does so, like a cloud

3) AND Shirakumo explicitly leaves it free by wearing a ‘pilot’s cap’ without a top as part of his hero costume.

Why leave it out? Why not put on a proper cap or leave it out entierly? Is it a pure aesthetic choice? I don’t think so. Hero costumes are all about playing off your Quirk, after all.

There’s no way to confrim this as of right now, however, sadly, as we never actually see Shirakumo conjure or summon his cloud or anything of the sort. It just either is already in the scene, or it is not. If it disappears mid-scene, it is off-screen, so we have absolutely zero information. But if it’s true and his Quirk is somehow connected/dependend on his hair (like Katsuki’s dependent on his sweat or Momo’s on her lipid reserves), then it would make sense that a Trigger overdose could make the rest of his body take on the same qulities as his hair (starting with the hairs on this body if they aren’t already affected and moving from there), to the point all of him becomes ‘cloud-like’, possibly even to the point he’d hardly have a physical, human body left. Put more Quirk experiments on top to change and mix with his Quirk so that it changes from ‘Cloud’ to ‘Warp’, and the result is pretty much what Kurogiri’s body is: a back mist that you can use to open warp portals.

Of course, whether Shirakumo was conscious at any point while all that was going on or not, it’s unlikely such experimentation wouldn’t affect or even break his psyche. Destroy his sense of self. Give him a new personality just to deal with all this crap without going legitimately insane. Or maybe he did go insane or gave up and just tried to do whatever to make it all stop. It could explain why Kurogiri is nothing like Shirakumo even if, in a sick way, he was ‘born’ from him. And also why Kurogiri is so conditioned to not reveal any of the League’s secrets no matter what – because that’s what it seems like to me in light of this theory: conditioning. A part of him would still know (consciously or not) that if he does, he might go back onto that experimentation table to be tortured and played around with.

I’m not saying Kurogiri’s ‘creation’ was on purpose. In fact, I sincerely doubt that. Such breakthroughs in science are mostly luck and coincidence which are then explored further. In my opinion, Kurogiri wasn’t planned to end up as he did. He was part of the experiments that lead to the creation of Noumu. But for better or for worse, something went wrong/right in his case, something was different, and instead of turning into a Noumu, the Quirks he was stuffed with mixed, mutated and evolved to create Warp. He was an unexpected result, possibly one that AfO and Ujiko tried and failed to replicate. He was an accident, but an accident gone very right. So they used him where they saw fit, including as Shimura Tenko’s/Shigaraki Tomura’s babysitter/guardian and protector/guard dog. The fact that age wise, Shirakumo’s death and the Shimura Tenko’s Quirk manifesting (and by extension killing his entire family and being eventually taken in by AfO) also fits.

Tenko was five when his Quirk manifested properly. As Aizawa (and thus Shirakumo) are exactly ten years younger than him, they would have been fifteen at the time. Fast forward roughly 1,5-2 years, during which Tenko first lived on the streets, then was taken in by AfO and started to be ‘brought up’ by him. From Shigaraki’s flashback, it seems that at first, it was really only AfO and Dr. Ujiko that he met and interacted with. Shirakumo supposedly dies and his (possibly, probably) still-living body undergoes several atrocious Noumu experiments, but by a stroke of (bad?) luck, instead of becoming a Noumu or an ‘instant villain’, his Quirk mutates to Warp and he becomes ‘Kurogiri’. I think we can assume an additional half-year passed during that time. Tenko would be 7 or 8 at that point, AfO would be convinced he’d be a good ‘weapon’ to keep for himself and groom (whether or not he decided right then and there he’d be his successor is irrelevant), but it’s not like he can constantly monitor him like the good daddy figure he played at first, he has other things to do, and only a fool would leave a young child with a man like Dr. Ujiko. (Especially since said doctor already offered to ‘tweak’ him.) Then Kurogiri all but accidentally drops in their laps and AfO can kill two birds with one stone: he can have Kurogiri look after Shigaraki Tomura and raise him to be a strong villain, while Shigaraki, already convinced of AfO’s benevolence, could reinforce the idea planted in Kurogiri’s (broken) mind that he has no reason to go against ‘Master’, that he should help him etc.

Also, I may remember wrong, but Kurogiri seems to have a soft spot for Tomura, doesn’t he? A bit like an actual father or older brother? This further reinforces the above idea, as the difference in age between the two isn’t that big and Tenko would have been the first person in a long while to show Kurogiri/Shirakumo any potential form of what could count as ‘kindness’ after you went through months of atrocious human experimentation.

A final, minor point is also this: Shirakumo’s last name is written with the kanji 白 (shira) meaning ‘white’ and 雲 (kumo) meaning ‘cloud’. Meanwhile, ‘Kurogiri’ is made up of 黒 (kuro) meaning ‘black’ and 霧 (kiri) meaning ‘fog’. And well… A fog is a cloud, plain and simple. It’s a cloud that’s so heavy because of not-fully evaporated (or condensing) water that instead or forming in the sky in the way everyone knows those soft-looking, white, fluffy clouds do, that it stays low to the ground and forms a fog instead.

A heavy cloud that can’t ‘fly up’ (and be free) because it’s too heavy (held back by something)… white, the color of pureness, innocence and, in a way, goodness, and black signifying either corruption and evilness… or, just as often, despair, pain and suffering. Make of that what you will.

#BnHA #Vigilantes: BnHA Illegals #Heavy manga spoilers #Shirakumo #Kurogiri #Villain Factory #All for One (AfO)#Meta Analysis #Theorizing #Human Experimentation

20 notes · View notes

sheeple · 5 years

Text

Spideypool

GIF NOT MINE. THIS IS ALL FICTION. Genre(s): Marvel!au / College!au Group(s): EXO Pairing(s): Deadpool!Chanyeol x Spider-Sona!reader (Inspiration) Summary: Dp!Chanyeol has a thing for Sg!reader and tries to charm her in his own little way. Warning(s): Mentions of blood / killing / bit weird / idk man A/n: this fic is made for the lovely @youxidol, the first person who requested something and it just filled my heart with so many sparkles <3 [Masterlist] [Moodboard]

“I swear to God”, I mumble while rubbing my temples through my mask.

This is the third time this week that I received a ‘love note’. That’s how my admirer calls it. Down at my feet, at the bottom of the building, a pile of bodies formed in a heart. Blood trails are coming from all around.

“I know you’re here, Dpool.”

A deep laugh is heard from behind me and the giant in the red leather suit and throws an arm around my shoulder. “Do you like it, my love bug?”

I just know that he’s grinning behind that stupid mask. I just know.

“Keep your hands home, creep.” I shrug his arms off my shoulders. An irritated groan runs through my chest as I hear the sirens of the police coming our way.

“Yah, (Y/n)! You have to retreat. The Police are one block away”, I hear in my ear, Sehun informing me from his comfortable seat in his dorm.

“Well, it seems like my time is up. Don’t go around killing innocent people.” I let myself fall off the building, shooting the web and sticking it to a building, swinging away.

“They were never innocent”, I hear faintly as I swing towards my dorm.

I leap through the open window in Sehun’s room and let myself fall on his bed.

“That Deadpool guy really likes you”, grins Sehun while spinning around in his desk chair.

“Oh just shut up, you twit.” I jank my mask off my sweaty face and throw it at him. Sehun shrieks and falls off his chair, face hitting the floor.

A loud laugh burst out my mouth and I roll over the bed while clutching my stomach.

“Just get showered, we have class in an hour”, he informs me grumpily while pushing me out of his room.

I groan loudly as I peel my skintight suit off my body, annoyed at the thought of going back to college.

I mean, it’s not like I hate going to college. But being a superhero won’t pay the bills so I have to get a degree and find a job.

Sehun is an engineering major and I am a history major. We don’t have any classes together except for astronomy and chemistry.

Sehun and I take the car once I have showered and filled my stomach with some food to get to our first class.

“He-hey, (Y/n), wait up!”, we hear a disembodied voice coming from behind as Sehun and I want to walk to our astronomy class. I let out a soft huff as a giant comes running our way. What does he want?

Park Chanyeol. He’s too tall for his own good, well build but clumsy. He always carries his guitar with him, even if it’s not needed. But he’s a music major, so I kind of can understand?

“Can I talk to you?”, he puffs while leaning on his knees once he catches up to us.

I raise an eyebrow. Is he seriously out of breath from running down the hall? He looks better in shape than he actually is.

Chanyeol eyes Sehun and he sighs, glaring at me before walking away towards our class.

“So eh... I kind of am failing astronomy and mister Kwon said you are at the top of our class. So can you help me? I mean, I get if you don’t want to but─”

I put up a hand, stopping Chanyeol mid-sentence to spare me some non-stop rumbling. “It’s okay, it’s okay”, I chuckle softly.

Chanyeol let out a short, relieved laugh while scratching the back of his neck.

“I don’t know if I can help you but I am free tomorrow night so I can... I don’t know, teach you?”

A bright smile beams on the giants face as I turn around, walking towards our astronomy class.

“If I was you, I should sit next to me. I may let you copy my notes.” A small smile lingers on my lips as I hear the heavy steps of Chanyeol following me.

We quickly walk into the classroom to slide in the seats in front of Sehun. He throws me a questioning look. I raise my shoulders, telling him I will explain it later on.

Chanyeol stayed silent the whole class, glancing once in a while at me to look at my notes.

After class, I didn’t even have the chance to talk to Chanyeol as Sehun drags me out of the classroom.

It’s been two days since Chanyeol asked for my help. It was quiet last night on my patrol, strangely quiet for a Seoul night.

Crime never sleeps but that night it took a nap. Weird. But, the stupid masked hero I am, I am fully geared up and position on to of a roof, phone in my hand.

It’s not like I am complaining. I need my rest too since Chanyeol keeps bugging me with stupid questions about Astronomy that can easily find in the textbooks we got. But I guess he’s just an idiot?

And Sehun hasn’t talked to me since yesterday afternoon. He just stopped, out of nowhere and won’t answer my texts. It worries me to death.

“What has you looking glum, sugarplum?”

I grimace under my mask at the sound of an oh-so-familiar voice.

“Not now, Deadpool”, I grumble while looking at a red, blinking dot on my phone screen that claims to be Sehun’s location.

“Oh my, what has your panties in a knot, my dear.” Deadpool wraps an arm around your shoulders, looking down at the screen. “Looking for someone? A new bad guy? The new Doc Oc? Someone who stole granny purse?”

I whip around, ready to slap to shit out of the giant pain in the ass but his leather-clad hand stops me before I even can come close.

“Oof, feisty.” He smirks as I jank away.

“Can you like ─ I don’t fucking know ─ kindly fuck off or something? Go search for Francis.” I wave him hastily off, eyes glued back on my phone.

Before Deadpool can answer, my phone rings and Sehun’s name pops up on the top of the screen. I hold my hand up and pick up the phone, lifting my mask just above my lips to be better heard.

“Jesus Christ, Sehun! Where the fuck are you? I get that you’re angry but this is just─”

I stop mid-sentence as I hear a laugh. It’s not Sehun’s, the laugh is too sinister for it.

“If you want your sidekick back come alone to this address.”

My phone vibrates and I see that I got a text from Sehun’s number with some address.

“Come alone. Otherwise, the boy is dead.”

My breath hitches as the call gets ended. What am I going to do? Well, I am definitely going to the address.

“Spidey?”, Deadpool says softly behind me while laying a hand on my shoulder.

“DON’T fucking touch me.”

I open up Google Maps and type in the address before pulling my mask down my face and fire a web, swinging off the where the blue line brings me.

It’s an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. Typical. I land softly on both feet as I look around. Nobody. Not even security. Quickly and as soft as possible, I walk into the building blending well into the shadows with my black suit.

“You can come out now, Spider-Sona!”, says a sickly wicked voice that makes me puke and I do what they say.

My breath hitches as I see Sehun tied to a chair all bruised and bloodied with a gag in his mouth, his eyes blown with fear as he sees me. He begins to move frantically, shaking wildly his head, telling me to go back.

I have trouble not ripping my mask off my face and running towards Sehun and embracing him.

But the person standing next to my best friend stops me. He has the barrel of a gun pressed to Sehun’s temple and I stop in my steps.

“Not a step further or you can scrape his brains off the floor.” The man smirks while pushing the gun firmer against Sehun’s head.

“What... what do you want of me?”, I ask with a tremble in my voice.

He laughs. “Is that so hard to understand? I want your life ruined like you ruined mine.”

I knit my eyebrows together. I ruined his life?

“You caught my father, doctor Liam Smith and send him to jail. Thanks to that he could never go back to work! He hung himself in his cell. And thanks to that, my whole world got destroyed!”

Now I see it. “Hank? Hank Smith?”, I ask, unsure if I got it right.

I caught his dad, Liam Smith, for experimenting on kidnapped children of rich people before selling them off to the human trade.

“Hank... I am... I am sorry but what your dad did was wrong! Sorry to say but he deserved it!”

Hank laughs creepily, two pairs of hands grabbing me harshly from behind and holding me in place. I struggle but notice that it is fruitless and that I am only exhausting myself.

Hank walks with slow steps towards me as he licks his lips, eyes travelling over my masked face.

“Once I reveal your true identity to the world, I will make sure that you die of a horrible death as everybody watches the life drain from your eyes.”

I gulp, struggling out of the grasps and kicking the guys behind me in their crotch. They let go of me and I attack Hank, shooting my webs in his face so he stumbles backwards and drops the gun.

But he’s far smarter and blocks the webs, firing the gun and shooting me in the leg. I scream out and drop to my knees.

Sehun grunts loudly while struggling to get loose.

Hanks groans and turns around, hitting Sehun with the gun and knocking him out cold.

He turns back to me and kicks me to the ground, a breath of air wheezing out of my lungs as I hit the dirty floor painfully. Blood soaking through my suit. “Now I have you like I want it, all vulnerable and helpless, begging for your life.”

I look up, gritting my teeth. “I guess you need some hearing aids because I don’t beg.” I spin my good leg around and Hank falls on the ground, hitting his head on the floor. I crawl towards him to grab his gun but Hank jumps up, making me fall backwards and he grabs me by my throat, squeezing my airways close.

My breathing gets shallow as my head begins to feel light.

“Any last words, Spider-Bitch?”, Hank smirks wickedly before lifting the gun and placing it under my chin.

“Yeah”, a voice says behind us, “stay the fuck away from my spider.”

The sound of multiple bullets that get fired ring through the air and blood spatters all over my face, Hanks body dropping limply on top of me while releasing my windpipe.

I take a deep breath while letting my head fall back, eyes slowly closing.

“Hey, hey! Stay here, okay?” A red mask hovers above me and I turn my head, stretching my hand towards Sehun’s body.

But consciousness loses against the dark nothing and my eyes close, sleep welcoming me. The last thing I remember is the yelling of someone and reddish, fluffy hair sticking to someone’s forehead.

I wake up with a shock and sit up. But my body tells me that is the wrong thing to do and I wince, a sharp pain hitting me everywhere. I lay back down and look around the room.

It’s obviously a guy’s room as it has dark colours and lifting weights stalled out in the corner together with a boxing ball that hangs from the ceiling.

But the thing that catches my sight is a familiar red and black, leather suit hanging on a hanger on a closed and my suit laying folded on a chair.

Despite the protest of my body, I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My eyes grow wide as the hole where Hank shot me almost doesn’t hurt and is only a small wound.

“How in the world”, I mumble under my breath as I look further down my outfit. I am only wearing an oversized sweater and my panties.

I stumble out of the bed and walk out of the bedroom, following the smell of freshly made food, my stomach rumbling at the idea of food.

Once I step out in the kitchen, my breath hitches as I see a familiar giant standing with his back towards me. “Chan... Chanyeol?”

The giant yelps and turns around, a relieved smile adorns his lips while scanning my body.

I feel a bit insecure and pull the sweater down. Chanyeol catches onto that and turns around, lifting up the frying pan and scraping the scrambled eggs onto two plates with toast.

He places the plates on the table and I understand the sign and take place on a chair.

I look around and knit my eyebrows. “Where’s Sehun?”

Chanyeol cuts a piece of toast and puts it in his mouth. “I dropped him off at the hospital. You know, your web-slinger is actually very hard to use.”

I let out a soft chuckle. “I know, it took me two months at least to understand the thing.”

Silence engulfs us after that and we eat our eggs and toast.

“Soooo”, I begin, “you’re Deadpool, hmm.”

Chanyeol raises his shoulders. “I could say the same of you. I never expected you to be Spider-Sona. Not like I mind, not at all! Now I think of it, it kinda fits.” A smile spreads on his lips.

I snort. “Ah, so asking my help for astronomy is not a trick to get closer to me?”

He chokes on a piece and coughs, very dramatically I must add.

“What? No! Well, not as Deadpool, of course. But just as Park Chanyeol.”

I shake my head. “I have so many questions, my dude.”

“And you can ask them under a cup of coffee before we visit Sehun in the hospital.”

My head shoots up, a faint blush spreading on my cheeks. “Like a... like a date?”

Chanyeol quickly begins to mumble. “I mean if you want to! I totally get it if you want to have nothing to do with me. I am kind of annoying, you know.”

Chanyeol gets beat red and I giggle, finding it very charming.

“Of course I would like to go on a date with you.”

49 notes · View notes

burlybanner · 5 years

Text

Dust (ScienceBrosWeek, 2019)

Summary: Tony Stark is a rose, is a rose, is a rose. Or: I do not think that name means what you think it means (okay, really, I just thought that summary sounded cool. It means nothing...).

Disclaimer: This is different from my usual style and I’m not sure where this story is going. So I’m not sure when I’ll continue. But keep me honest; it’ll happen eventually.

Enjoy. Unbeta’d, as usual. **

Bruce simultaneously wiped his forehead and cupped his hand over his glasses, protecting his eyes from the glare of rusted junk scattered across the clearing. Besides machine parts there wasn’t much here other than brambles, scraggly brown weeds, and burnt patches of road gravel - and the occasional ugly ragged bird, scratching at burnt crumbs. The place hadn’t seen rain for weeks, or maybe even months, and the abandoned farm looked exactly like what he expected to see. Or worse.

A sudden gust from the föhn-ish winds lazily shoved the air like a tired toddler and kicked up clouds of gravel dust, choking off the oxygen in Bruce’s throat.

So, okay. Definitely worse.

He hazarded a glance at Tony who, despite the blistering heat, looked ready for a photo shoot. Bruce’s eyes narrowed. Was there ever a time Tony looked anything but perfectly put-together? Apart from the days he crawled beneath a clunker’s belly, to spin grime into polished chrome?

“Remind me why we’re here again?” Sweat trickled from the hairs on Bruce’s neck. He could feel the droplets settling uncomfortably beneath his collar, merging with the grimy dust. The only positive? The weather was too hot and dry for mosquitoes - just gnats, pestering the hell out of them.

Bruce swatted back a gnat cloud before it got too close. “Scenic tour, is it?”

Tony’d gone strangely quiet, but then he’d also been uncharacteristically silent since their Cessna landed on the camouflaged airstrip a few hours ago. Their driver sped from the tarmac and over the twists and turns of winding county back roads. For ninety minutes Tony silently sipped from a flask off and on, until they unearthed this dead place. The most Bruce got from him in an hour was a few rough, “uh huhs,” some “maybes,” and a chuckle or two. And already unsettled from the plane ride (he was a terrible flier, everyone knew it), Bruce let the bumpy ride lull him to sleep. He’d been too tired and frustrated to question Tony’s silence.

When the limo slowed Bruce opened his eyes, shaking the lingering sleep from his bones. He listened as the limo’s tires popped and rumbled over craggy rocks and pebbles and groaned and stretched as the limo lumbered to a stop. After they exited the car, he briefly watched as it receded into a canopy of knotty trees and wondered if Happy would ever find them again.

Tony inhaled sharply and twisted his body in Bruce’s direction. “Not exactly.” The metal frames of his glasses caught the sun, causing Bruce to squint. Tony’s grin didn’t reassure him. “Let’s head inside. Away from the heat.”

Bruce tried, failed from halting a comical double-take. “Where?” He scrunched his face at the distant “barn,” a careening red structure and one strong wind away from becoming rubble. “Surely not--”

“Appearances, Brucie,” Tony said, taking off his jacket and slinging it over one shoulder. He strode towards the barn before Bruce angrily trudged after him. “You of all people should know what that means.”

“It’s a mile away, so you better be right,” Bruce grumbled. He wasn’t in the mood but admittedly he’d been spoiled. Years ago, dry, dust-choked places like this wouldn’t have phased him in the least. They were paradises, in some lands. But he’d hung around Tony’s sweet life for far too long now and yearned for temperature controlled buildings and AIA-winning environments.

He made a face and huffed after Tony’s rapid retreat, suddenly hating how mercilessly soft he’d become. He knew that meant more than one thing but it hurt to poke the truth. He’d rather be angry at himself, at how quickly his former physique had devolved to flab.

Tony flipped around and walked backwards so Bruce could catch up. “If you went for a run with me every so often,” he grinned, and Bruce wanted to punch his gleaming teeth, “you wouldn’t be so out of breath.”

“I’d rather be fat, than a drunk,” Bruce retorted hotly, but Tony’s grin didn’t falter as Bruce matched the billionaire’s steps.

“Tsk. Temper, temper, Brucie. And touche.” Tony gave Bruce a cursory nod and slowed his pace. “You’re not huge, you’re chub light. High side of average for a red-blooded American male.”

“Are you going to keep jabbering on about my weight, or are you going to explain why we’re here?”

Tony’s smile thinned, catching Bruce off-guard. He preferred their banter, honestly. Much better than the sadness he caught from Tony’s eye. “Do you remember,” Tony sighed, “when my father died?”

“Yeah, of course I do.” Bruce’s tone softened and Tony further slowed as they trudged toward the barn. “We’d gone our separate ways. Rhodey to the armed forces, me to the Peace Corps. You were finishing up your doctoral thesis, as I recall.”

“Mmhm.” The rest of his response died a little, muffled by their feet scraping the gravel pathway. “Howard Stark, entrepreneur extraordinaire. I took over the business, kicked out the old guard, fought my way back to the top before buying you back from the government a decade later—”

“Not true,” Bruce puffed. “I was an aid worker then.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Barely scraping by. Ross still had your patents. Once you ran out of money, you would’ve crawled back to him soon enough. He was counting on it.”

“Whatever,” Bruce rumbled. “Anyway. Yes. You bought back my patents from the government. And you turned SI from a monster into a clean tech leader, turned Rhodey into SI’s government liaison - with their blessing - and turned me into a fat desk jockey.”

Tony raised an eyebrow, giving Bruce the side-eye.

“Fine,” Bruce rumbled. “Sitting and eating behind a desk turned me into a fat desk jockey. And before you ask, no I’m not blaming you. It’s my own doing after becoming SI’s R&D lead.” He waved off his anger, pretending to swat another cloud of gnats. “So? What’s your point? That’s ancient history. We know that.” He gestured between them. “You, me. Rhodey. The three of us know that.”

“However. I never told you the whole story.”

Bruce opened his mouth but couldn’t find anything to say. He’d known Tony for over twenty years, but never knew Tony to hide anything from him. Or Rhodey. “What story?” He finally asked.

“That Pops was a...Secret Agent, man,” Tony sang, off-key. “Helped run covert ops with my Aunt Peg.”

Bruce stopped dead and only partly because his feet hurt. “You’re putting me on.” But after a few beats of silence he realized the man wasn’t joking. “Seriously, your Dad? The asshole?”

“Hey, now,” Tony admonished. “Only I’m allowed to call him that. And don’t stand there like a dead pigeon. There are spies around and they get trigger happy if people linger out here.”

“What?” Bruce ducked and wildly glanced around the plains.

“Sorry. I’m joking.” Tony snickered and waited until Bruce caught up. “At least I think I’m joking. Honestly, I don’t know how spies operate.”

“Jesus Christ. Don’t joke about that. I still get nightmares of the DRC.”

“Sorry,” Tony repeated, and Bruce could tell he was genuinely sorry. Then, after a pause: “I...didn’t know you still had ‘em.”

Bruce rubbed his brow ridge with a shaky thumb. He would’ve let him off, told him he was joking, but it would’ve been a lie and he never was any good at fibbing, either. “You never really forget.”

“True.”

Bruce opened his mouth then quietly shut it; it wasn’t the time or the place. If they wanted to swap more horror stories and compare pasts it’d take a lot of time and beer. Copious amounts of both.

He’d heard about Tony’s kidnapping while abroad and although it mirrored some of his experiences, Bruce’s own detention had been...longer. He’d broke from his initial captivity before spending years on the run, fighting his way from militia group to militia group and running illegally through foreign checkpoints. Sometimes he got caught. Sometimes good people died. He regretted much of what he did to survive, to get back. And Rhodey hadn’t been around to rescue him like he’d done for Tony.

Still. They both realized how lucky they’d been. Despite how it changed them.

Tony stopped and Bruce realized they’d made it to the barn; it was just as bad up close. “Not much to look at,” he grumbled at the gaping front. He assessed its dilapidated state while trying to catch his breath.

Tony grinned and pulled a rickety sliding door. Bruce briefly massaged his hamstring. “What did I tell you about appearances?”

Bruce shot Tony a rude gesture.

Tony laughed, hopping inside.

When they passed from the blazing sun into the barn, Bruce shielded his eyes again. He blinked to let his eyes adjust to the sudden change from light to dark and briefly made out a few motes, dancing between streams of warped wood. When he could fully see he saw what he expected: A pitchfork, some old bales of hay. A broken tractor.

But the man surprised him.

“Hey, Clint,” Tony said, waving to a guy casually chilling in the corner. He had sandy blonde hair and was reading a magazine while chewing on a straw. He could’ve passed for a farmer, apart from the black tactical coveralls. And sidearm.

“Mr. Stark.” Clint didn’t even look up. “You ready?”

“Yeah. Dr. Banner’s with me.”

Bruce unconsciously began backing away. “Tony...”

Tony squeezed his shoulder and Bruce found himself melting into Tony’s touch. He hated the pull Tony had over him, but he’d take whatever he could get these days. “Don’t bolt, Brucie,” he murmured. “Promise, it’s all good. No one’s gonna stuff you in a trunk.”

“That’s what they said at the Sudan border. Look how that turned out.”

“Bruce.” Tony waited until Bruce turned to him. Tony’s eyes had hypnotic qualities, Bruce swore they did. His heart slowed and his panic fled as Tony stared him down. For good measure, for Bruce’s peace of mind, he bumped foreheads with him. “Trust me.”

“All right. Okay.” Bruce licked his dry lips. “Okay.”

Clint had been shadowing them but Bruce hadn’t noticed. The man had slipped to the door and gestured to a wall switch, still flipping through his magazine and paying them no mind. Bruce’s paranoia spiked. Really, this guy was good at his job. Too good.

“Goin’ down?”

“Yeah.”

Bruce staggered back when flaps rose out of the floor, revealing a platform lift growing from the ground like a flower.

“Like I said,” Tony said, when the lift stopped. “Appearances.” The platform was only big enough for four small people, but at least it had a safety cage with handrails so they couldn’t fall to their deaths.

Tony pulled the metal gate and stepped inside. Clint followed behind him. “Coming?”

Bruce swallowed, but Tony’s voice lingered in his mind: Trust me.

“Guess so.”

Bruce tentatively followed Tony onto the platform, allowing whatever fate had in store.

#sciencbrosweek #sciencebrosweek2019 #dust #chapter 1 of a I have no idea where its going fic #bruce banner/tony stark #sciencebros #bruce banner #tony stark #stanner #Rhodey's in here somewhere too

14 notes · View notes

tisfan · 5 years

Text

Time after Time

Nopennamesleft: Spending another day in the waiting room of the hospital. If you have a time for a prompt, I’d love to see something with one of the boys waiting by the bedside of the other.

A/N -- This prompt was left for me in a comment on A03 and I’m filling it because I love this person dearly, they’re a regular commenter on my fics. That said PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS to me. I spent like 20 minutes looking for this prompt. Send all prompt requests to my Tumblr askbox or to pillowfort

co-written with @27dragons Winteriron - sick fic, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending.

When Bucky is hit by a magical time bomb, he loses most of his memories... of the War, of his time as the Winter Soldier... but most importantly, of his husband.

The worst thing in the world was to be standing in the faded green corridor outside a hospital room, hands clenched together, the fingers wrenching at each other, as two experts calmly and quietly told Tony, “We don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

The bad guy was dead, killed in his own explosion, but Bucky had taken the backlash of the energy output, retreating last, as was his habit. Normally, Tony would have said something as minor as an explosion couldn’t hurt his husband, but Bucky had been unconscious, and had remained so for a few days.

And when he’d woken up, finally, he hadn’t recognized anyone. Bucky had panicked, screamed, fought. Medical staff had been forced to sedate him. Watching him crumple onto the floor, dressed in a hospital down, face twisted with fear… maybe that had been worse.

Tony gritted his teeth. “What do you mean-- No, that’s not fair. You don’t know. Okay. But you’re working on it, right? You’re going to figure this out.”

“Of course, Mr. Stark,” the lead doctor said. “We’ve called in some experts in neurological damage. If you -- or any of the other Avengers, really -- could look into what sort of explosive device? We’re detecting some anomalies in Mr. Barnes’ blood that make no sense. If we knew more about what caused it, we can treat the symptoms, at least.”

“Send the workup on the anomalies to me,” Tony said. “I have some people I can put on it. And I’ll disassemble the remains of the device myself. I was just... waiting for him to wake up.” He swallowed past the lump in his throat. Bucky had woken up. It just hadn’t been as much of a relief as Tony had hoped.

(more under the cut)

He waited until the doctors had gone on their way, then closed his eyes and took a few deep, fortifying breaths before going back into Bucky’s room. “Hey there, sweetheart,” he said softly. Bucky was still unconscious, and maybe it was better that way, until they figured out why he’d forgotten them all. He brushed back Bucky’s hair and leaned over to kiss Bucky’s forehead. “We’re going to fix this. I promise.”

Tony had always noticed, when he’d visited Steve from time to time, or Wilson, or even Clint, how much smaller and less heroic everyone looked in a hospital bed. There were tubes in Bucky’s elbow and machines hooked up that detected his heartrate and oxy count. His metal arm was swathed in bandages to hide it from him, since the first time he’d woken up, he’d tried -- and horrifically, nearly succeeded -- to remove it. The second time he woke up, staff had convinced him that the first wake up was accompanied by vivid hallucinations and that he’d been badly burned, which is why he didn’t feel any pain in that arm.

Tony wasn’t sure the lies were going to do any good in the end, but they were all somewhat at a loss.

What did you do with a super-powered human who didn’t know they were super powered?

He was a danger to others, like this. He was a danger to himself.

Didn’t mean looking at him, with the adamantite cuff holding him to a reinforced bed, didn’t hurt any less.

“I love you.” Tony swallowed again. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, ever, to walk away from Bucky’s bedside. But he needed to fill the others in on the utter lack of answers. He needed to get the doctors’ records and analyses to people who could, perhaps, make sense of them. And he needed to strip the remains of that damn bomb down to its component atoms, if necessary, to figure out how to bring his Bucky back.

Steve was the first person on his feet, as soon as Tony entered the waiting room. It couldn’t have been any easier on him; having Bucky forget Steve, his best friend, more than once, even. It was… mind-numbingly awful, or it would have been, if Tony had been able to get his mind to go numb. He wasn’t sure that was possible.

“Is he okay?”

Nat was there, too, in the waiting room. The important people in Bucky’s life that he’s forgotten club. They should get jackets.

“He’s... resting. Physically, he’s as healthy as he’s ever been. The doctors found some anomalies in his system. They’re going to send me the details, and I’ll feed that to Bruce and Helen. Otherwise... they have no idea what happened.”

“He didn’t get hit on the head,” Clint supplied. “Just finished my scan of the street-feeds. He just… well, look.” Clint popped up the 3D reconstruction, showing the ripple of the bomb’s massive energy release, which hit Bucky full force, and then reached about another meter or so beyond him before dissipating.

Bucky in the film didn’t do more than stumble, shoved by the blast wave.

What did happen was that he blinked, looked around wildly as if he had no idea where he was. Reached up to scrub at his face and saw--

He had stared down at his metal hand as if he’d never seen it before. Turned it slowly, and then screamed. Started trying to get inside his tactical armor, but the fastenings were unfamiliar, he didn’t know where the autozips were. Scrambled at his uniform, tearing the fabric and nano-mesh.

Screamed again, and then went to his knees, still staring at the outstretched hands.

He collapsed, sobbing with terror, and then, mercifully, blacked out.

“No head trauma,” Tony observed. He was shaking all over, just from watching the footage and being unable to comfort his husband. “So it’s not standard amnesia.”

Natasha reached out and caught his hand, squeezing it tightly, trying to comfort him. He gave her full credit for the attempt, but he wasn’t going to feel right again until Bucky came back to himself.

God, what if he never... Tony closed his eyes and let himself hang onto Natasha like a lifeline. “He can’t be gone. He can’t.”

“Buck’s tough,” Steve said, as if anything about any of this was reasonable, rational, or had anything to do with physical strength. “If he can come back from Hydra, he can come back from… whatever this is. I just know it.”

Nat took pity on him, because she knew him so well. “Go home,” she said. She didn’t tell him to rest, or eat something, or even to take care of himself, because she knew that he wouldn’t. “Dig into this, and we’ll let you know if there are any changes.”

“The instant anything changes,” Tony insisted, because he had to, not because he thought they wouldn’t. “I don’t care where I am or what I’m doing. I have to... to be here.”

“We know,” Nat said, and she brushed her mouth over his cheek in a light kiss. “But you can’t be here, not right now.”

“He’s awake,” Steve reported, panting for breath. Steve seldom ran short of breath, so Tony was going to assume he was experiencing stress, rather than fatigue. “But he doesn’t-- he thinks it’s 1940. That he’s twenty-three years old, that he’s never even been drafted. He knows who I am, but he doesn’t remember how I got this way. Doesn’t trust me.”

Tony stared at Steve dumbly for a long moment, trying to process that. 1940. “So he... he knows who he is. Sort of. That’s... that’s a step.” It was better than the worst-case scenarios that Tony’s brain couldn’t seem to stop spinning every time he tried to rest. Tony shoved his hand through his hair. Christ, in 1940, Bucky hadn’t even been a soldier yet. He was just a kid, really. “It gives us somewhere to start, anyway. I guess. Anyone tried to explain to him what happened? In a general sort of way, obviously, since I’m still trying to separate the tech-bits from the magic-bits on this damn bomb?”

“Well, Buck-- he was always into that future stuff, when we were kids,” Steve said. “He, uh… kinda thinks we’re either aliens who’ve kidnapped him, or some sort of Things to Come, Chandu the Magician science fiction crap going on. He was… they didn’t have to sedate him again, but he only stopped resisting because they said they were going to.”

“Science fiction crap is definitely on the right path,” Tony said, a sad smile tugging at his lip. Bucky was an adorable nerd and Tony loved him for it. It was good to know -- well, have it confirmed -- that it was a longtime trait. “You keep... filling him in. Maybe find him some of those biographies about him? The ones that were written before... you know, the Winter Soldier. He’s probably still too freaked out to cope with all that.”

Steve nodded. “You should… you should go visit. Nat thinks it’ll be good for him to see people who care about him, even if he doesn’t remember. Since we can’t, you know, bring his family in.” The last of Bucky’s siblings had passed on from extreme old age a few years back, and while he had grand nieces and nephews, those relationships were still tentative, all the way around. Hard to cope with, for them, and for Bucky as well.

Tony drew a shaky breath. “Yeah, okay. I’ll... I’ve got some magic-gunk samples I want to drop with Strange, and then I’ll head to the hospital.” That was going to hurt. A lot. But if it would help, Tony would do goddamn near anything.

“Nat’s with him, now,” Steve said. “Thought I’d grab some food, and a little sleep, before I head back.” He squeezed Tony’s shoulder, bracingly. “He’s alive. There’s still hope, Tony.”

“Trust you to be all chin-up Captain Optimism about it,” Tony gibed, though his heart really wasn’t in the banter. He desperately, desperately wanted Steve to be right. “Go fuel the righteousness and get some rest, Steve.”

“I remember when I thought the world’s problems could be solved by socking Hitler in the jaw,” Steve said. “I miss those days, sometimes.”

It would have been nice, Tony supposed, if the guy who’d done this had lived through it, and therefore, could be blamed and held accountable. But no, he’d vaporized himself, along with half the city block and the last half century or so of Bucky’s memories. Pity. Tony would have liked to punch that guy.

Nat was nowhere to be found when Tony arrived at the hospital. In further fact, Bucky was alone, and awake, in his hospital room when Tony walked in.

Bucky glanced up and a strange spasm of emotion crossed his handsome features before they smoothed out again. “So, what’s your story?” he scoffed. “My long-forgotten kiddie school teacher?”

Yeah, Tony had been right. This was going to hurt. But he and Bucky had promised not to lie to each other, no matter what, and even if this Bucky didn’t know that, it went against the grain to do anything else. “Nothing as easy as that,” Tony said, lowering himself into the horrible chair that was in the room for visitors. “I’m actually your husband, here in the future.”

“That’s jus’ about the least believable thing anyone’s told me yet,” Bucky snorted, his voice straining for calmly rational, although there was a nervous stutter near the end, and his eyes darted wildly around the room to see if anyone else was listening. If anyone… knew. The face of a kid who’d just been outed in front of his church group.

“I know it must sound crazy,” Tony said. “But it’s really true. I know, right now I probably don’t look like any kind of a prize, but we’re actually... We’re role models, we’re hope for a lot of people who have been afraid to be themselves.”

Bucky glowered, not the crazy-eyed assassin that Tony sometimes saw come out when they were Avenging, but a young man who was desperately frightened and trying not to be. “I ain’t-- who tol’ you I was some sort of nancy-boy queer?”

God, it was his Bucky’s face, but that expression, that voice was so young. Something in his chest squeezed until Tony began to wonder if he were going to have a heart attack. “You did,” he said gently. “You told me you’d figured it out when you were, what, fourteen? Watching Joey Kinley lighting candles at church.”

Bucky’s eyes got huge, rounded, and his mouth dropped open. “I never… I never tol’ anyone,” he said, voice a tiny little thing wrapped around a huge confession. “Thought God would strike me dead, right there on the spot. Was gonna go to hell and no one was going to mourn me. I told… I told you that?”

“Yeah. I don’t think it was easy, but you did. We were still dating then, had been seeing each other for about six months.”

A mix of terror, anxiety, and somehow, like he was putting down a huge burden that he’d carried for as long as he could remember, relief, crossed Bucky’s face. “Uh… what’s your name?”

“Tony.” He wondered briefly if Bucky would connect the dots, then mentally shrugged and added, “Stark. Tony Stark.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, not like he was agreeing, but just filling up the space. “Damn, Joey, I… he had just the prettiest brown eyes I ever saw, like… like velvet. My ma had a velvet collar on one of her coats, it was so soft. Th’ softest thing I ever touched. Did I tell you that? It don’t… what you say, it don’t feel real, I feel… lost.”

He shifted a little to look straight at Tony. “You have brown eyes, jus’ like he did. Can you look right at me an’ swear, swear this is real, this is really happening?”

Bucky’s eyes were wide and scared and still so goddamned young, and Tony wanted to just gather Bucky up in his arms and promise that everything was going to be okay, but he didn’t think Bucky would welcome such close contact, not yet. That didn’t stop Tony from needing it, though. “I swear,” he said. “I swear on, on my parents’ graves, that I’m telling you the truth, that this is real. That we’re married and it’s been the best damn two years of my entire life, and I love you with everything in me, and I’m not going to stop until we find a way to help you.”

Tony wasn’t even sure if Bucky realized that he was crying; it wasn’t really full on weeping, just a shimmer in those pale, blue eyes. He blinked rapidly and the tears vanished into sparkles along his eyelashes. “I--”

Which of course was when Nat strolled in, a weapon’s satchel over her shoulder. “S dobrym utrom,” she greeted him in cheery Russian, then paused. “Tony--”

Tony’s Russian was never going to be as good or unaccented as Nat or Bucky’s, but he did understand it.

He wasn’t sure who was more shocked, Bucky, or himself, when Bucky returned Nat’s good morning without hesitating. “Do you know when I can leave?”

“Ha!” Nat said, grinning and returning to English. “I thought that might work. Sorry to interrupt, Tony.”

Bucky looked shocked, nearly to the point of comedy. Tony jumped out of the chair and flung his arms around Natasha, because he needed to hug someone. “He’s still in there,” Tony gasped. “It’s not gone, just... hidden.”

“He is,” Nat agreed. “You are. He is.”

“What… what was that, what did I say, is this… witchcraft?” Bucky stammered.

“As far as we can tell,” Nat said, “yes. Ever use a gun before, Barnes?”

“No,” Bucky said, forehead wrinkling. “Was the welterweight boxing champion two years running. Never needed more than my fists, to--”

Nat rummaged in the bag and pulled out Bucky’s favorite short range pistol. “Field strip that for me, soldier.” She tossed it on the bed, where it bounced between Bucky’s knees.

Bucky picked it up doubtfully, handling it almost gingerly. It looked foreign on Bucky, who was so casually comfortable handling firearms that he nearly looked naked without one. “Look at me,” Tony suggested. “Don’t think about the gun, you’ll just get in your own way. Look at me and tell me something about... Oh, about Steve.”

Bucky turned his chin at the sound of Tony’s voice, hands moving automatically, the gun turning from a strange, alien object into his trusted weapon, into an extension of himself. “Uh, well, one time, we were jus’ near to getting done with schoolin’ and he had to miss a bunch of it, he caught scarlet fever, and he couldn’t draw or write or nothing. His hands were shaking. But we had this stupid essay to write, and he didn’t want to fail. So he told me what to write, and I… I used my right hand to do it, so that it would look all shaky, like Steve’d done it his own self.”

Tony kept looking at Bucky, holding that gaze, but by the time Bucky was half a sentence in, his hands started moving, methodically stripping the gun and laying out the parts on the blanket. When his eyes started to drift, Tony drew him back. “Well don’t leave me in suspense,” he cajoled. “Did he get a passing grade?”

“He did,” Bucky said. “In English an’ art, but he failed outta history.” Bucky put the last piece of the weapon down and then stared at the neat layout. “Am I possessed? You gonna call a preacher t’ get the devil out of me? Husband an’ knowin’ and… what is fucking going on here?” His voice spiralled up in a panic, and then--

“You have retrograde episodic memory loss,” Nat said, cutting through the panic. “You remember everything that happened to you before-- whatever happened to send you back to 1940. But all your procedural memory is intact. You know how to do things. Your skills aren’t lost to you.” She shoved a pad of paper onto the bed along with a pen. “Sign your name.”

Bucky didn’t hesitate, plucking the pen out of her hand with his left hand. He scrawled and then stared at his signature. J. Barnes-Stark.

Tony swallowed against tears of relief. He was still in there. They were going to find a way to bring him back. “Told you,” he said, making it as light as possible. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Procedural memory, huh?” Bucky wondered. “I just… know how t’ do these things, because I learned it? Before… after? I will have learned this?” He chewed his lip for a moment, then crooked a finger at Tony. “Only one way t’ be sure, I guess.”

Tony stepped closer, raising an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

Bucky appeared to brace himself, like he was about to put his hand in a fire, then--

Tony was being kissed.

He’d kissed Bucky hundreds, probably even thousands of times, sweet and soft, or rough and dirty and everything in between. Like the first time they’d kissed, or the last time they’d kissed, it was both perfect and extraordinary and utterly familiar. His lips knew the shape of Bucky’s mouth, his tongue knew that taste, his hands went around Bucky’s shoulders, fingers curling in the same, familiar pattern. Bucky’s hands were in Tony’s hair and he was doing that thing, where he brushed his thumbs along the underside of Tony’s ears. That thing that made Tony weak in the knees, every single time.

Tony groaned and sagged against the bed, all but climbing right onto Bucky’s lap. He fell into the kiss with a desperate, frantic need, clutching at Bucky’s shoulders and then sliding down Bucky’s arms, tracing at the seams of the metal arm and holding on as tight as he could. “Oh god,” he rasped when Bucky finally drew back a little, and slumped forward, resting his forehead against Bucky’s.

“You sure as hell kiss me like you know what you’re doin’,” Bucky said, touching his lips lightly with his fingers. “That…. That was so weird, like… kissin’ you for the first time, but… not.” He suddenly went tomato red, eyes darting over to Nat, who was casually looking out the window, as if she wasn’t the least bit affected by their display.

“I’d tell you to get a room, but… you have a nice one here, and I’ll just… see myself out,” Nat said.

“Yeah, go on,” Tony said, grinning. “Go give Steve the good news.”

Nat disappeared in one of her characteristic fades, the door barely making a sound as she closed and probably secured it behind her.

“Tony--” Bucky said… “we’re. Actually married? Like, that’s allowed?” When Tony nodded, he held up one finger, then added. “Do you… do you love me? Could you say… like you always say it?”

Tony leaned in close, nuzzling very lightly at Bucky’s temple, breathing in the familiar scent. “Love you, snowflake.”

“Love you, too, dollface,” Bucky told him, and his eyes were wide and shining again. He stroked Tony’s cheek with his fingers. “Guess… guess I must, ‘cause… I feel that. Right in here--” he touched his chest. “You’ll… you’re gonna wait for me, right? While it all comes back?”

“As long as it takes, I’m here for you, sweetheart,” Tony promised.

#winteriron #tony x bucky #bucky barnes #tony stark #sick fic #hurt/comfort #angst with a happy ending

109 notes · View notes

breadkneewrites · 5 years

Text

A Valentine’s Day Recipe: Eggs, Slippers, and Air Pollution

“‘Course, kid. Now hurry up. I’ll make some food for you.”

“Oh, no. Sir, you don’t have to do that. You definitely do not have to do that. Please don't do that.”

If he didn't know any better, he'd say Peter didn't want his cooking.

Peter, for reasons he can’t fathom, comes back on Valentine’s Day.

Tony’s thoughts usually revolve around the word ‘fuck,’ a little bit of alcohol, and a whole lot of self-destruction. But, as he steps into the living room at a bright and early eight ol’ clock with a mug of coffee and his Iron Man slippers shuffling across the floor, his only thought is what the fuck?

It’s almost been an entire year since Thanos’s snap dusted half of Earth’s population, and Tony has almost gotten himself right again -- enough to be able to talk freely about Peter and the memories he has with Aunt May. He was doing good.

He doesn’t really know what to do now.

The kid’s standing in his living room and staring at the large assortment Tony picked up from the store yesterday. Flowers, chocolates, wine (the whole nine yards) -- all for Pepper. To, in part, apologize for his behavior the past ten months. And to show how much he loves her. She’s done so much for him, going so far as to gently take a bottle out of his shaky hands as he tried to drink himself to death. He just wants to do something to make up for it. Anything. It’ll never be enough, but he’ll keep on trying until the day he dies.

Tony stands in the doorway of his living room, the coffee mug burning his palm from the way he was carefully holding it. Originally, his plan was to slouch in front of the TV for a few hours until Pepper got back from the office. Things never go to plan for him. So, instead, he stares at Peter and ignores the way the coffee threatens to spill over onto his hand.

What do you even say to the kid who died in your arms ten months ago? Especially when he is (very, very) suddenly standing in your living room and inspecting the quality of the roses you bought your soon-to-be wife? Tony steps forward, not really knowing what else to do, his slipper sliding across the hardwood floor loudly. It’s then that Peter glances over his shoulder to blink at him.

His eyes are still so, so innocent.

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” the kid pipes up, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, and Tony knows he’s going to start trying to explain himself. “I would’ve knocked but, um, F.R.I.D.A.Y. said I could come in, and Pepper wasn’t answering the door and I didn’t know if you would be home so, uh, yeah. I walked in? I didn’t really have a plan. I just… did.” Peter awkwardly lifts a hand in a half-hearted shrug. Was he just planning on standing in the living room until Tony or Pepper came in? His gaze drops to Tony’s slippers, staring at them for a moment, before resettling on his old mentor’s face. “I would’ve called, but I don’t really have a phone anymore?”

What the fuck is he supposed to say?

He starts with the obvious elephant in the room. “How the hell are you alive?” Tony has half a mind to set his chilling coffee on the nearby table. “You died.” Questions are making his head spin as he tries to grapple with the concept that Peter is here. Alive. And is just standing in Tony’s house, chewing on his lower lip anxiously.

“Mr.-- is it Doctor? I still don’t know? Anyway, Mister-Doctor Strange found a way.” When Tony’s stare prompted him to go on, he scrambled to find a way to explain. “He figured out how to use the stone, I think, in his mind? Because he’s connected to it through a spell. I’m probably wrong.” Peter pauses. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve messed up somewhere. Is it even possible to do that?”

“Pete, you died. I watched it happen.” Tony’s pretty sure the wrecked tone in his voice was embarrassing, but he doesn’t really care at this point. Peter fucking Parker just came back from the dead, and the first thing he decided to do was stand in Tony Stark’s living room after ten months. Ten months. “I went to your funeral.”

Peter’s smile droops at that. Rather than responding, he pauses to clear his throat. Then, “is--” he swallows down the tears in his voice, “is Aunt May okay? She’s not hurt, right? Did she--” He cuts off, but the implication is there. Did she turn to dust too?

“I talked to her yesterday.”

“Oh thank god, I was so worried she was one of-- one of them. Those poor people--” Peter wrings his hands, looking anywhere but Tony. He can see grime under the kid’s nails. Briefly, he wonders what the kid had to do to survive.

“He couldn’t figure out how to bring everyone else back,” he says suddenly, keeping his eyes pointedly on the rug under his socked feet. “There was a spell he created. For one-time use.” Questions threaten to break Peter’s story. They bubble in his throat and threaten to spill over, but Tony keeps quiet as he listens. “I was the only one who went through. They all said that I should go because I’m a ‘kid.’” He bends his fingers as he quotes the rest of the team. “They all had messages for me to give you, but I don’t really want to go into them now, sir, if that’s alright.”

“Christ, kid. Of course it’s fucking alright.” Peter blinks at him in surprise at the profanity, but his shoulders drop slightly in relief.

Strange sacrificed himself, along with everyone else, for Peter. They all chose to stay for him. Part of Tony is selfishly glad that is was the kid. So, so selfish. A tiny, rational part of him wishes it was the whole team. Of course he does. They were his family. But if it had to be only one person? He would pick Peter too. Always.

Peter was family too.

Thanks, Strange. I’ll pour you a drink. Hell, I’ll buy a whole beer company and let every barrel drain.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark. For everything.” Something in Tony breaks. Months and months of wishing Peter was okay, that he wasn’t dead, or dying, or stuck in some unknown place all alone come rushing to the front of his mind. It takes only a few strides to get across the living room and throws his arms around the kid. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Peter sobs, “I should’ve listened, I should’ve stayed on the bus and gone to the stupid MOMA, even though I’ve already been there a hundred times--”

“Shut up, kid.” Tony presses his fingers into Peter’s hair. It’s irrational, but he just wants to remind himself it’s not dust. That the strands of brown hair between his fingers is real. Memories of Peter’s hair fading into the sand hide on the inside of his eyelids. “I’m seriously talking to May about grounding you for a least four years.” He pulls away from the kid, but lets his hand rest on his shoulder to look him seriously in the eyes. “No more space adventures, alright?”

Peter gives him a lopsided grin. “Even when they figure out a way for us to live on Mars?”

“Definitely not then. You’re staying right here. We can die with the air pollution.”

“Isn’t that a painful way to die?”

“Probably.”

“How do you know you’ll even live to be that old?”

“Can you just shut up?” He definitely doesn’t want Peter to keep quiet, especially after missing him for ten long months, but he knows the kid wouldn’t shut up. Ever. Even if Tony would very much like him to. There are a lot memories of Tony chucking a tool at the kid to stop him from talking.

“Mr. Stark, I do have, um, one request?” Tony drops his hand to go and retrieve his coffee cup. He sips it, even if it’s ice cold now.

“Shoot.”

“Can I have some clothes?” He guesses that ‘death’ wasn’t really supportive of alternative clothing, because Peter’s still wearing his Spider-Man suit from his fight with Thanos. It’s ripped in several places and extremely, extremely filthy. God, you can’t even see the difference between the black webbing design and dirt. Idly, he wonders where Peter got the clean socks from. “I wouldn’t ask,” he continues, “but I’ve been wearing these clothes for months and they’re really starting to smell.”

“Oh, I definitely could’ve told you that.” The suit smelled like a skunk took a dive into straight tar and vomit and decided to mix a little blood and sweat in with it. Maybe some alcohol too. Tony’s nose took a big hit when he’d hugged Peter. There were even a few tears, but those were definitely because of the smell. Definitely. “Come on.”

Suddenly, “Do you have any more of those slippers?” He swears the kid was laughing behind his back.

“Kid, these slippers are limited edition. Do you really think I don’t own every set?”

“Right. Well, I really like that they light up when they walk.” Tony can hear the smugness dripping from Peter’s voice. Just to mess with him, he makes sure to step hard enough for the tiny blaster noises to activate. It earns him a snort.

Tony flicks on the light to the room he turns into, pausing to take it in.

“I had this set up for you before Thanos and all that shit happened.” He looks around the room for the first time in almost a year.

Spider-Man photos are framed along the walls, but that’s the only thing that was centered around the superhero. In an attempt to capture Peter’s simple style, Tony had the room decorated like the typical teenage boy would probably prefer. Dark gray sheets and a black comforter adorn the bed, equipped with a simple bedframe, and the carpet was a calming blue. A desk was shoved against one wall, a computer resting (brand-new, personally built by Tony himself) amongst a bunch of little odds and ends. There’s a flatscreen TV along one wall (with all the latest gaming consoles) and a couch.

Honestly, it was kind of embarrassing that it took him so long to decorate it.

Pepper said it was ‘adorable.’ Which it definitely is not. He just wanted Peter to have somewhere to stay when he and Tony worked on the suit late and had to crash on the couch. There were more than enough rooms in the house anyway. (His mind cruelly reminds him that there are even more unused rooms now, but he elects to ignore it.)

Peter’s schoolbag rests on the desk chair, a silent gift from May. It used to be exciting, but the sight of his bag still hanging around after his death had curdled something in Tony’s stomach (once he’d gotten back on Earth after everything), so he haphazardly tossed it on the chair. He hasn’t been in this room since early April.

“Wow,” Peter says in awe, staring about the room. “You really didn’t have to, Mr. Stark. Like, really didn’t have to.” There’s an argument there for later, and he bets the kid’s going to try and refuse the room for the living room couch. Tony will proudly remind him how much it cost to decorate it, and Peter will awkwardly shuffle into the room to sulk about the money spent on him.

“I had more than enough room. Besides, you’re going to mess up my couch with your drool. Do you know how often I have to clean that up?” Peter has the decency to look sheepish. “Well,” Tony clears his throat awkwardly, “there are clothes in the closet and a bathroom through that door. No, every room has its own tiny bathroom. Your room isn’t special. And no, don’t argue about it. You have to use it. Go ahead and shower, Spider-kid. You need it.” He makes a big show of plugging his nose with his fingers and waving the air around Peter, earning himself a light punch to the shoulder.

“Okay.” Tony ruffles the kid’s hair roughly as he moves to leave the room, not caring in the slightest about the dirtiness of it. He’s just glad the kid is back. Though he knows Peter will probably move back with Aunt May tomorrow, he’s happy that he’s here, even for the night.

“Oh, right. There’s Spider-Man slippers in the closet too.” Peter gives him another wide smile and moves to pull them out. “They make web noises when you walk on them.” He’s totally saying this from memory of the product description and not because he owns a pair.

(They were limited edition.)

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Peter says sincerely, eyes still darkened with the memories of the weird purgatory-state-thing-place he was in for ten months. Hell, Tony doesn’t even know anything about it or if it felt like ten months, a few hours, or even a year. Frankly, he doesn’t want to ask right now.

“‘Course, kid. Now hurry up. I’ll make some food for you.” Peter swallows dramatically as eyes wide with terror.

“Oh, no, sir, you don’t have to do that. You definitely do not have to do that. Please don’t do that.” If he didn’t know any better, he would say Peter didn’t like his cooking.

“How’s an egg omelette sound?”

“No, uh, actually, I’m allergic to eggs.”

“Oh, are you? I thought I saw you eat eggs that morning when Pepper cooked breakfast?”

“Those… those weren’t eggs?”

“Are you sure? I’m, like, a genius and rarely forget things. I’m pretty positive they were eggs.”

“They definitely weren’t eggs.” Tony squints at Peter from across the room.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re lying to me right now. Are you lying to me, kid?”

“I would never lie to you, sir.”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.--”

“Is unavailable right now!” Peter stands up quickly, trying to drown out F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice as she answers. “She’s down for a system check!”

“She’s never down for a system check. I do those myself.”

“No, she definitely does them.”

“I literally do those myself--”

“Anyway, I’m going to get a shower, Mr. Stark! See you in a bit!” Peter grabs any clothing he sees from the closet, ripping a shirt off the coat hanger and yanking a pair of jeans from the drawer. He practically bolts into the bathroom, slamming the door shut with a determined click of the lock.

“You forgot underwear!” This only prompts Peter to zip out of the bathroom and grab a random pair of underwear and socks before scurrying back to start the shower. Tony sips from his mug and rolls his eyes, grimacing at the taste of the cold coffee. If Tony Stark had only one skill, it would be his ability to make anybody in his vicinity embarrassed.

When he hears music and (very) off-key singing drift from the bathroom, his heart tightens in his chest. Peter is here, home, and going to be okay.

It’s a long road to recovery, and the kid’s bound to hit a few bumps along the way, probably in nightmares, panic attacks, and severe PTSD, but he’ll be alright. Tony’ll be there every step of the way. For every therapy appointment, every self-destructive moment, every outburst, flinch, and cry.

He’ll make sure of it.

He’s not losing his kid again.

Tony Stark never considered himself to be a father, not even a father figure, but as he listens to Peter sing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” terribly as he tries to hit every, single line, he knows he could. That he could be a father to Peter Parker. God, he really wants to be.

Though, honestly, the kid’s singing is a bit atrocious. He sets a reminder to call May later and try to explain just exactly how her nephew is alive. But, for now, he focuses on getting something in Peter’s (most likely, completely empty) stomach.

For once, he’s glad Peter takes long showers because he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing as he measures out the ingredients F.R.I.D.A.Y. instructs him to grab and throws them in a bowl and skillet. (It took him at least five minutes to even find the skillet, let alone gather all the ingredients and bowls). It takes him at least forty-five minutes (at least) to conjure up a semi-decent omelette and find a plate to slide it onto. He sets it on the table, rights the napkins and fork, and moves to brew another strong coffee. A little alcohol might’ve found its way into it, but he deserves it after the morning he’s had. I mean, he did meet someone came back from the dead, and that’s gotta count for something, right?

If anyone says he burns Peter’s omelette and has to start from scratch three times, then that’s just an obviously blatant lie.

When Peter comes out of the shower and spies the egg omelette on the plate in the kitchen, he gives Mr. Stark a tight smile and sits down. He’s not going to just refuse a perfectly… good… omelette… yeah, he can’t refuse an omelette if it was made by Tony Stark himself. Like, that’s gotta be bad luck or something, right?

Even if he really, really, really doesn’t want to eat the eggs. How did he even manage to make eggs that badly?

If he becomes nauseated for the next few hours and has to puke once or twice (at the taste, not the overall quality of the eggs, they weren’t spoiled or poisoned), then that’s perfectly fine. Because he’s home, and he’ll take really, really bad eggs over what he went through any day.

They get take-out from an off-the-wall Chinese restaurant down the block and watch terrible Valentine’s Day movies for dinner.

It’s the best Valentine’s Day Peter’s ever had.

#irondad #tony stark #peter parker #spiderson #mcu #marvel #valentine's day #irondad fic #fanfiction #tw: there's mentions of alcoholism #and ptsd #but neither are shown #infinity war #iron man #spiderman

38 notes · View notes

bitsandbobsandstuff · 6 years

Text

Safe with me (14)

Summary: When an unknown threat enters your life, protection is offered at the highest level. As Bucky Barnes comes into your life, the game changes, and you realise falling for the man tasked with keeping you safe is the last thing you expected.

Characters: Bodyguard!Bucky Barnes x Reader Warnings: Bad language. Graphic descriptions of violence. Minor character death.

A/N: Bucky has methods to his madness and you are just done with these people. Stuck in the middle of a battlezone is a terrible place to be.

Tags for this story are CLOSED Link here for posting schedule

SAFE WITH ME MASTERLIST PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Previously…

The room is silent.

All eyes are on Bucky, who stands at the screen with his hand still raised. Steve releases him slowly, when he feels the panicked movements go suddenly rigid. From behind, a peculiar shapeshifting appears to take place. His posture changes, his neck flexes, his shoulders roll back.

Bucky stands up straight.

When he spins around, even Steve takes a step back at the sight.

Deadly rage burns like blue fire in the Soldier’s eyes.

*****

MID-1990s

Jack Bernstein pours a cup of coffee and parks himself behind the large wooden desk, propping his boots on Pierce's crisply folded suit coat. He takes a long drink, coughing when the scalding liquid scorches his throat. No matter. He enjoys the pain, because he needs something simple to ground him before he buzzes out of his skin.

That was exhilarating.

Every fantasy he's entertained about this day, about meeting the Soldier for the first time, all of it pales in comparison to the real thing. In life, everything about him was infinitely more than Jack ever imagined. Harder. So obedient. Beautiful and perfect. What a marvelous gift.

Scanning the white walls and bits of clutter adorning the small office, Jack memorizes every detail. He knows he'll remember this day for the rest of his life.

Sighing in contentment, he selects the top folder from a large pile, one appropriately stamped with the word "INDUCTION" in chunky red script. He begins to read.

-----

BASIC HANDLING INSTRUCTIONS The Asset requires minimal formal care, but it is biologically enhanced and dangerous if not handled properly. The following instructions will minimize risk to handlers. See related appendices for detailed information.

Removal from cryofreeze: Asset will be sluggish and non-responsive. Hosing down with cold water is recommended before wiping. Clothing is optional, but not preferred during removal phase.

Wiping process (see detailed instruction manual): Asset will tolerate wiping process as long as it is completed shortly after leaving cryofreeze.

Nutrient management: Asset does not eat standard food. Calories should be administered in the form of IV fluids.

Drug enhancement: Adrenaline may be given through injection but should be used sparingly as it enhances agitation levels. 'Oblivion' can be given in limited amounts. Technicians are recommended to hold Asset's jaw shut until clear the drug has dissolved / been swallowed.

Weapons selection: Asset will select its own weapons. DO NOT try to remove weapons from the Asset's body once they have been strapped in place, may result in loss of life or limb.

In the unlikely event of death due to mission failure, Asset has no personal affairs or effects to manage. If available, body should be cremated to reduce risk of knowledge transfer.

-----

He moves slowly through the Asset's files, absorbed in hundreds of pages exploring every detail of the disturbingly long life. Memorizing lab reports and doctor's notes, tracing wondering fingers over the blunt block letters of his mission reports, captivated by photos showing bullet holes and knife wounds littered across a broad chest.

Shivering with delight at the idea that all of this belongs to him.

He was disappointed to put him back on ice, but the Algeria mission was unnecessary and it's best to be patient. He has years to learn him, to understand his Soldier inside and out. Every intricate nuance of his body, every sparking neuron in his brain. How to obliterate everything and how to piece him back together.

A perfectly indestructible toy.

Jack tips his head back and laughs, the sound bouncing around the small room.

And after all – toys are meant to be played with.

*****

PRESENT DAY

5 HOURS AND 10 MINUTES AFTER ABDUCTION

To this day, Bucky marvels at the difference between a Hydra mission and a mission for himself.

Now, Bucky takes blisteringly hot showers before every mission. He despises the cold, hated it during the war, hated it even more with Hydra. He doesn't have time tonight, so instead he stuffs heat packets in the pockets of his tac pants. He loves the way they make him sweat.

Now, Bucky doesn't rely on IVs and pills and manufactured enthusiasm. Instead, he drinks a special cherry flavored Gatorade Bruce had engineered especially for him and Steve, and he raids the Tower cabinets of every king-size Snickers he can find. Chocolate and peanuts make him happy and help him focus, and Bucky swears their tagline was written for him. He is definitely not himself when he's hungry.

And now, perhaps the most stunning difference, are the personal affairs he puts in order. As the Soldier, Bucky had less than nothing. He remembers the vague feeling of wistfulness, of emptiness, that often intruded before a mission – he consistently took unnecessary risks, because he had nothing to draw him home. When he joined the Avengers, he behaved the same way – until Steve reminded him that he had his own real life with people and possessions he loved. So, Bucky sat down and wrote a will. He still doesn't have much, but now the little things he cherishes all have a place to go when the inevitable end arrives.

On that note, Bucky digs out the sheet of paper from the bottom of his desk, finds a chewed-up Bic pen, and makes one small amendment.

Under the Brooklyn apartment, he adds your name next to Steve's.

*****

5 HOURS AND 20 MINUTES AFTER ABDUCTION

Steve can actually feel his body thrumming when he reaches Bucky's bedroom, tension climbing over his skin. Pausing outside the door, he steels himself for a full-scale brawl, because as he well knows, his best friend is a stupid god damn fucking idiot.

Throwing open the door he stomps inside, kicks it shut, and starts speaking.

Loudly.

"Look, I know you're pissed as hell right now, but you need to take a beat and think about things. You can't go barging in, shooting everything on sight with no back-up. It's fucking suicide."

Bucky hums in agreement, fishing through his loose change jar for the key to his bedside weapons cabinet.

"Seriously Bucky, we need a plan. This is very obviously a set-up."

The small key snicks when the lock clicks open, revealing a cache of knives and guns, several old grenades and a handful of Widow's Bites he won off Natasha in a poker game.

"They know you'll come. They expect you'll come. Traps, Buck. There'll be so many traps."

Bucky nods along with the tirade, but the absentminded move proves he's not listening. Frustration bubbles over and Steve's now yelling.

"James Buchanan fucking Barnes, why are you such a stubborn asshole all the time?"

At the words, Bucky looks up in startled surprise.

"What the hell Rogers? Why am I an asshole?"

"I don't know Buck, why are you an asshole?"

Tossing an armful of knives on his bed, Bucky plunks his hands on his hips, head tilted in genuine confusion as he stares at Steve.

"What am I – "

"You're not going alone Bucky."

"Whoever – "

"There's no guarantee you're not walking right into a god damn trap."

"No sh – "

"Why the hell can't you ever let anyone help you?"

"Steve, I – "

"Jesus Christ, you're an insufferable prick!"

Bucky looks on the verge of laughing.

"Are you done? Can I talk?"

Steve grabs a bottle of cherry Gatorade off Bucky's dresser and chucks it at him, growling when Bucky dodges the missile.

"Yeah I'm done. Jerk."

Bucky sighs patiently. "Steve. I'm not going in blind and obviously I need your help. Assumed the whole damn team was coming, so I'm not sure why the hell you're standing here. Stop being a little bitch and suit your self-righteous, spangly ass up."

Steve opens his mouth to argue, but – yeah, he's got nothing. Bucky raises his eyebrows and goes back to sorting knives, separating his favorites and setting them aside.

"Well," Steve clears his throat, still spoiling for a fight, but struggling for a reason. "Well okay then. Long as we're clear. About time you stopped acting like a self-sacrificing dumbass."

Bucky snorts. "You should talk. Meet me in the lab in 10, we leave in 40. Only got a few hours until the sun rises. I want this finished before then, I'm not leaving her there a minute longer."

"Good," Steve grunts, and turns to go. The door's almost closed when he hears the question.

"Steve?"

Spinning at the sound of Bucky's low voice, Steve's heart skips a beat when he sees the expression. The façade has broken, harsh emotion filtering through the cracks. In the entirety of their crazy fucked up lives, Steve's never seen his best friend look so desperate.

"If he kills her – I won't stop. Not until every last one of them is dead." A dark look settles on his face in place. "I'm telling you right now, don't get in my way. Don't make me stop."

Steve contemplates him for a long moment.

"I know you won't. And I'll help you do it."

Thank god for Steve Rogers. Bucky gives him a brisk nod and goes back to his knives.

*****

5 HOURS AND 25 MINUTES AFTER ABDUCTION

Bucky storms into Tony's lab, a wraith in head to toe black. The silver arm is emitting a constant whir, endlessly clicking and shifting, a physical representation of the anxiety pulsing through his veins.

"Stark, I need your help."

Tony looks up at his arrival, blanching at the image. Mission ready, Barnes is just a little terrifying.

Black tac pants are tucked into a pair of comfortably worn combat boots, and each boot holds two long serrated blades, rough black handles within easy reach. Strapped around both thighs are matching holsters, the right side holding a Sig Sauer P320, the left side holding a Beretta M9. A black utility belt sits low at his waist, holding extra clips of ammo, a cylindrical tube with five round mini-grenades, and a pack of bandages. Flat against each hip, are two fixed blade combat knives, and tucked into a holster at his lower back, sits his Glock.

Strangely, the most striking feature about the whole ensemble isn't the ridiculous amount of weaponry. It's the ordinary black tank top he wears.

Normally refusing to let anyone see the thick red scars streaking down his shoulder, he always ignores the curious questions or dismisses the thoughtful comments with an icy glare. But tonight, for the first time Bucky appears oblivious to the furtive glances and open stares.

Well, he's not actually oblivious. He's just totally out of fucks to give.

Rubbing both hands down his face, Tony slaps them on the table, fingers splayed wide. Disappointment rolls off him in waves, and Bucky thinks he knows what's coming.

"Stark, listen – "

"I'm sorry," Tony interrupts, curling his fingers into hard fists, rapping his knuckles restlessly against the table. "I screwed her tech up, that's on me. I wasn't – "

"Stop," Bucky holds his hands up. "Seriously. I'm sick and tired of us taking the blame for the shit these assholes do. Forget it and help me fix it."

Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes stare at each other for a long moment. Their relationship's been disproportionately burdened by a shared history, but with this common purpose, each is relieved to find the other willing to wipe the slate clean.

"Done," Tony says tightly. "What'd you need?"

"Remember the throwback outfits we had for that charity event? With Steve's stupid USO outfit and my Commandos uniform?"

"Sure," Tony says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "They're in storage. Why?"

"I need the blue jacket."

"You need it right now?"

"I need it right now," Bucky confirms.

"Are we stopping by Fashion Week on the way? You're not wearing it on this mission, are you?" Tony asks, bemused by the odd request.

"I most certainly am."

Tony purses his lips and chooses his words carefully.

"Uh, not that I don't condone wearing whatever makes you feel comfortable with your bad self, I mean clearly I love red since it highlights my boyish good looks and all, but you're supposed to be stealthy. That's kinda your thing. The blue is bright, Barnes. No clue why Howard ever made that dumbass design, they'll see you a mile away."

Bucky doesn't reply. Instead, he offers a slow smile and there's something so astoundingly sinister, it makes Tony's teeth chatter. Bone-chilling and lethal, he sees the anger simmering just below the surface, Bucky's murder face on full display.

"Ah. Right. So. The color was bright on purpose," Tony guesses. "You wanted to be seen."

"I did," Bucky affirms, his tone easy and conversational. "And now I want every one of those fuckers who took her to shit their pants when they see me. I want them to know exactly what's coming for them."

*****

6 HOURS AND 5 MINUTES AFTER ABDUCTION

Down in the cargo hold of the Quinjet, Bucky's screams grow louder and louder. Sitting quietly on the above level, the team remain stoic.

*****

6 HOURS AND 30 MINUTES AFTER ABDUCTION

The world around him is dark and blessedly quiet.

Alone now, Bucky leans a trembling forearm against the window, rests his aching forehead on the cold glass and takes a shallow breath. The beads of sweat dripping down his face finally begin to dry, so he shuts his eyes and lets his mind wander, searching for something sweet to calm the nightmare still wracking his body. Like a slideshow, the pictures in his brain flip at lightning speed, until they stop on his apartment in Brooklyn and zero in on the book you left tucked under a fuzzy velvet blanket.

The Book Thief.

When he watched you pick it up that day, Bucky fought back a smile. It's one of his favorites, something he's read a dozen times. When he feels anxious and fidgety, the story is soothing, the pages crinkled and bent, the poetic words smoothing the edges of his soul in a way he could never explain. Tonight though, Bucky begins to understand why the story holds so much appeal.

Through the horrors that made up the bulk of his life, first during his war, and later as the Soldier, a concept always played in the back of his mind.

Some people are born into this life with the desire to command, to play God. Some demand the role and some accept the burden when it's given. That was never him. No, Bucky was always asked to play one role above all others, one that led him to find a kindred spirit in the narrator of his favorite book.

Death.

It's been his calling card since the first day of Basic, when the US Army plucked him from obscurity and shoved a rifle in his peculiarly steady hands. From that day forward, he owned every life around him. Some he spared, some he protected. Some he reaped with a broken neck in the dead of night, some he bartered with a sharp blade and a sharper tongue. This has been the way of his life for so long, it boils down to a single truth.

Most of Bucky's life – has always been death.

Now he stands silently, accepting once again the bleak mantle laid across his shoulders and he thinks of you curled in his leather chair, warm in a patch of afternoon sun, your finger unconsciously marking his favorite quote as you drift to sleep, not realizing you equally loved the one line that always gave him pause.

"Even Death has a heart."

Most of Bucky's life has been death, but that's okay. Because those words are a poignant reminder that he can be so much more than the hollow shell he was. In this life with you, he finally understands how his head and his heart really are better together.

So, he holds the words in his mouth, tests them on his tongue, accepting that if the inevitable happens, he has a reason to come home.

"Even Death has a heart."

He certainly does, Bucky thinks wryly. He opens his eyes and gazes into the star strewn blackness, his heartbeat a steady rhythm driving him forward, back to you. And it's all hers.

*****

All you can think right now, is that this compound is freezing and you'll rage kick anyone who comes near you.

Slouched in the chair from earlier, a constant throb of pain shoots up your awkwardly bent arms, still secured behind you with a plastic zip-tie. Earlier struggles had done a number on your wrists, the unforgiving plastic slicing open the delicate skin and even now, blood oozes from the lacerations. It offers a small amount of warmth though, the sticky liquid running down your fingertips and catching under your nails.

You're a little disappointed when it cools.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

How did you not know?

You knew Jack. You knew him. He supported you, encouraged you. Offered helpful life advice even when you didn't ask for it and bought you a bottle of champagne to celebrate your first by-line. How could you not see that charming, amiable façade, hid a full-blown unhinged psychopath? How was it possible to be so utterly wrong about someone?

Maybe you should fire yourself for being the world's worst investigative journalist.

Huffing in frustration, pain flares anew when you shift, searching out a comfortable position. The stripes on your arms burn, your ribs are bruised, your jaw aches.

Everything hurts.

Bucky, where are you?

Closing your eyes, you let your mind drift, reaching for the imaginary comfort of your favorite place. An apartment in Brooklyn filled with piles of fuzzy blankets and soft pillows. Shelves of books and bowls of peanut M&Ms. The fresh scent of the river and Bucky's laughing blue eyes.

Did he see the video? Did he know where you were? Would he figure it out in time? The grim reality of this whole thing, was that you desperately wanted to leave, to be back in Brooklyn, warm and safe in his arms, but there was one glaring problem.

You wanted Bucky to find you.

You wanted Bucky to never face these people again.

Success was an impossible duality.

The faint sounds of movement outside your door grow louder, inaudible voices making you tense. Electronic beeps sound and the door whooshes open, revealing two men dressed in faded combat fatigues. One is tall and lanky, bald head shining under the fluorescent lights. He spares you a brief glance, before striding to the table and rifling through the knives and lengths of rope.

The other man is short and thin, with red hair buzzed military short. He gives you a little smirk as he ambles inside, making a show of locking the door and letting his eyes roam over you.

"Don't worry sweetheart, we're just here to tidy up," he says.

Sauntering over, he stops beside you, cocking his head and staring down, waiting for you to acknowledge him. Fixing a bored expression on your face, you ignore him, keeping your eyes trained on the door handle straight ahead.

"I'd look up if I were you," he advises. Heart pounding at the implied threat, you stare forward in silence. Suddenly his fingers are gripping your jaw, pressing into the bruises left by earlier knuckles, and the startled gasp melts into a groan as you struggle away from the rough hand.

Tears prick your eyes when you look up, meeting his mocking stare.

"There she is," he croons, pinching your jaw tighter. The pain makes your vision swim and you blink rapidly, fighting to stay conscious.

"I gotta say, we've been running real low on women around here. Be nice if you could help some of the guys out," he says casually. "Maybe later, once we get your man back under control. Hell, maybe he'll even have a go. I hear he'll do anything if you know the magic word."

Releasing you, he drags the tips of his fingers over your face, tracing the bruises, swirling his fingers through the blood still leaking from the gash high on your cheek. The pads of his fingers come away stained red and he brushes them over your mouth, painting your lips with the taste of salt and copper.

"How about it sweetheart?"

Eye level with you, his thumb is still rubbing your lip, waiting for an answer.

You can almost hear Bucky's voice begging you not to do it, but you're so god damn pissed off.

The taste of copper appears again, when you snap your teeth, sinking them into his finger. He screeches and jerks the hand away, hugging it to his chest as he stumbles backward.

"Bitch," he rasps furiously, raising his hand while you brace for the hit.

"Dude, would you get away from her? You're not allowed to mark her up," his partner cuts him off with a sharp rebuke. "Wait until the Asset's finished and packed away, you'll get a turn after. If there's anything left."

The nonchalant way they speak about you should make your skin crawl and it does. It really does.

But the way they speak about him, about your Bucky, as if he's nothing but a mindless animal and not the sweetest, snarkiest, most infuriatingly wonderful man in your life, makes you shake with anger.

"Makes your nervous, huh?" The redhead sneers, sucking petulantly on his damaged finger. "You should be. I hear he's a beast once he gets going. Brain's so fucking fried, he'll probably get confused halfway through, won't remember if he's supposed to fuck you or kill you, but either way – sucks to be you."

Nothing would be more enjoyable in this moment than stabbing this prick in the eye with a rusty knife, but you'll have to rain check. Taking a soul cleansing breath instead, you settle for your best Bucky Barnes murder face impression, letting a grim smile slowly lift your lips, while glaring in total silence.

"What the hell?" he grunts, unnerved at the creepy expression.

A long-suffering sigh comes from the bald man. "Stop talking and help me."

"Aw come on man, I'm just – "

The sound of a low sonic boom suddenly vibrates the floor beneath your feet.

Both men freeze, turning wide-eyed to each other.

"What the hell was that?"

"Something in the upstairs lab?" the other guesses wildly.

A long pause follows, the world quiet.

The second boom knocks the wind from you, raising dust from the floor. Lifting your eyes, you watch a long crack appear in the plaster ceiling, stilted bursts of movement as it spiders outward.

Silence follows again.

Then the distant pop of gunfire reaches your ears.

"Shit," you hear one of the men behind you whisper in panic.

The surge of happiness floods through you, promptly tempered by the panic of knowing Bucky was here, surrounded by these bastards once again.

"How'd he get here so fast? Bernstein said it'd take a couple days for him to figure it out!"

"How do I know? I wasn't planning to be here when he – "

There's a high-pitched scream in the hallway that's cut short.

Silence.

Suddenly the screeching whine of metal on metal rings through the room when something heavy slams against the locked door.

Once.

Twice.

"Fuck," the bald man spits out, lifting his gun and taking aim at the shuddering door.

Three times.

Next to you, the redhead draws a pistol from the holster under his arm, and you close your eyes when you feel the cold kiss of a metal barrel pressed against your temple.

Silence.

You can hear the ragged, panting of the man above you, deafening in the quiet room. He smells stale, like fear and cigarettes, the scents bleeding from his skin.

Silence stretches on, further and further, and you pray Bucky won't pass, that he knows, that he comes back.

The respite forces a shift in the room. Weapons lower slightly, muscles soften. Perhaps the Soldier has moved on.

A rookie mistake.

A catastrophic mistake.

With an ear-piercing metallic crunch, the door in front of you explodes open, ricocheting off the wall. A knife whistles through the air, cold steel whispering past your ear, before the wide blade lands in the man's neck with a wet thunk. The force of the throw knocks him flat on his back, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the rough hilt, and you squeeze your eyes shut when the gush of hot blood splatters across your face.

Roaring gunfire sets your ears ringing as the bald man fires five hasty bullets at the hulking presence in the doorframe, but each one is swatted away with a lazy flick of a metal hand. There's a sharp retaliatory crack, and the man wobbles for a second, before collapsing to the floor, a bullet drilled straight between his eyes.

Bucky steps into the room, gun raised while his eyes scan the corners, check the ceiling, sweep under the table. Swinging around, he catches the edge of the door and slams it shut, before grabbing a chair and jamming it beneath the busted handle.

When he stalks forward, a small fraction of your heart cowers in fear at the viciousness in his face. This is him, the unreal ghost story, the legend in the flesh.

"Don't look," he orders harshly, bending down to the twitching body beside you. Eyes closed, you turn away when you hear the cracking noise the knife makes as Bucky jerks it from the man's throat. A brief bloody gurgle follows, before it's effectively silenced, and you hear the sound of a body dragging across the concrete floor, landing with a soft thump.

Breathing fast, sharp little pants that make your chest ache, you keep your eyes closed and wait.

A moment later, you feel the light touch of cool metal on your swollen jaw. Opening your eyes, your heart leaps into your throat.

Leaning over you, he gently cups your face, patiently waiting for you to see him. And now, looking into those blue eyes, you wonder how on earth you could have ever been afraid, because this isn't him, he's not the Soldier.

This is your Bucky, through and through.

Reaching down to his boot, he pulls up a long knife, slipping it behind you to snap the plastic on your wrists. They feel like deadweight after being locked in that position, so he helps ease them forward, working out the aching kinks. Two quick flicks and your legs are free, and you see a minute tremble in his fingers when he returns the knife to his boot.

Kneeling before you, Bucky looks up, the penitent man with his heart on his sleeve. He swallows thickly, throat working as he gathers his courage.

"Hi," he finally whispers.

"Hey," you whisper back, voice cracking.

He sees the cuts and bruises scattered over your face, the raised welts down your arms. Reaches a tentative hand to your neck, fingers brushing over the thin line of rope burn, a broken sound rising from deep in his chest when he feels the raw texture of your skin. That sound alone is more painful than anything you've experienced, so you reach for him, cradling his face between your hands and his eyes close. Leaning into the touch, he turns to press his lips to the palm of your hand.

"You came for me," you murmur.

"I’ll always come for you," he responds, lifting blood-stained hands to cover yours, tangling your fingers together. "I love you. I love you so god damn much and I'm so sorry for everything."

Tears flood your throat at his declaration, at the heat behind his words.

"God you're such a pain in my ass Bucky Barnes, but I love you too. More than you can imagine," your voice is painfully hoarse, but his response makes each syllable worth the strain.

Speckles of blood cover one side of his face, sweat plasters strands of hair to his forehead, and there's white dust caught in the dark stubble covering his neck, but at your words, the grime and exhaustion fade away. Bucky's face lights up and his excited smile steals your breath.

"Really? Seriously?"

"Really seriously," you confirm with a smile, voice still weak but growing stronger. "Take me home Bucky."

"I will," he promises. "I'll get you out of here, I swear."

Taking your hand, he curls a warm arm around your waist and stands, lifting you carefully to your feet. Swaying at the move, you lean heavily into him and he wraps his arms around you, folding you close to his heavily padded chest.

And sure, the world may be falling to pieces outside that door, and god knows what you'll find when you leave, but in this moment, the only thing you need is the solid presence of the man surrounding you.

Comforting and stable and brimming with love, he is enough. He is everything.

Finally, reluctantly, he lets go. Stepping backward, he pulls his Glock from the holster at his back, cocks the hammer and flips it around. He presses the grip in your palm.

"Listen to me. We get out there, and I want you to shoot first, ask questions later. If you feel threatened at any point, pull the trigger, okay?"

"Okay," you agree.

"You remember everything I told you?"

It takes a moment, but you fish for the memory and reel it in, remembering that day at the Tower gun range.

"Yes. Squeeze the trigger, don't jerk. Both eyes stay open. Be ready for the recoil," you repeat.

He looks surprised but pleased at the automatic recitation. "I honestly didn't think you were paying attention that day. That was – kinda hot."

"Your face is kinda hot," you sass back instantly.

Pulling a fresh clip from his belt, Bucky snaps it into his Sig Sauer and grins. Watching his movement, you notice something new, something different.

"Hey. The blue jacket – it really did match my dress. I like it. You look really handsome in blue," you say softly, tugging his sleeve. "Sorry, I've been super behind on your compliments. Lots of catching up."

There's a blazing look on his face at your statement, and he wraps a gentle hand behind your neck and steps closer, resting his forehead against yours. Closing your eyes, you breathe each other in, a swirl of blood and death, of safety and protection.

"I love you," he murmurs the words again, reveling in the pleasure they bring.

"I love you," you answer, pressing a light kiss to his chin.

He hums at the response, giving himself one more delicious second to enjoy, before grudgingly stepping away. His voice shifts and he speaks quickly, sharing the basic intel necessary before leaving the room.

"There should be very few people left out there, I swept the majority of the lower level before I found you. There were people here, but it wasn't heavily guarded. Which makes me nervous. I don't know exactly what this place is now, but it used to be a secondary research lab. This is – it was here, where I met him. The first time."

It's clear who the him is in this scene. And while Bucky's voice is calm, you notice a flicker of confusion cross his face, and that small waver makes you want to find Jack and cut his heart out. Gripping his hands, you give him a small shake, forcing him to meet your eyes.

"Listen to me. You got out. You won. You never ever have to go back," he clings to your words, riveted by your conviction. "You came here to get me Bucky, but don't forget – I've got you too."

"I know," he agrees heatedly, pressing his lips to your knuckles. Then he shifts the chair blocking the door and squares his shoulders. "Alright, you ready?"

"Ready," you confirm. "Let's go fuck shit up."

Fingers pause on the handle and he sighs, equal parts exasperated and entertained. Glancing over, he looks like he wants to say something stern, but the serious expression melts and his shoulders shake with laughter.

"I really fucking missed you," he nudges you.

"Same," you whisper back, elbowing him in return.

Keeping one hand fisted in the smooth cloth of his jacket, you take a deep breath as he pulls open the door and steps outside.

Once in the hallway, his demeanor switches back to the man who kicked your door down only a few minutes before. He's overwhelming in this form, towering and tense, confidence in every move, so obviously capable it puts you at ease.

The corridors are eerily quiet, the tracks of fluorescent lights lining the ceiling giving off a steady buzz and the occasional flicker. The smell hits you in that moment, a strange burnt earth smell floating through halls, of gunpower and guts, and it makes your eyes water. People don't seem to talk much about what it's like on a battlefield, the visual horror and the stomach-churning smell. Now you see why.

Turning the corner, you see bodies scattered along the hall, the stench of blood a dense fog hanging heavy in the air. Bright red halos spill around surprised faces, and you see now that bullets leave very large holes. It draws your eyes with each body you pass, and your breath comes faster.

"Breathe through your mouth, not your nose," Bucky urges, his voice a grounding force as he propels you forward. "Look at me or close your eyes, okay? I won't let you fall."

"Yeah," you say weakly, turning your face toward calming blue. "Yeah, okay."

Rounding the next corner, the hall is thankfully empty of human remains. Bucky keeps his gun raised, eyes sweeping along. All seems deserted, until the whisper of rolling wood, like a closet sliding open reaches your ears and you see part of the wall begin to shift. Bucky swings around, but your finger already hovers dangerously over the trigger, and without thinking, you squeeze.

The bullet makes a solid thwack when it hits, and a body crumples to the floor.

A sickeningly familiar body in fact. One with a faded red tattoo crawling up his neck.

He groans, curling around himself, gasping as blood pumps from his abdomen. In one quick stride, Bucky is standing over the writhing body, and he stomps down, grinding his boot into the man's wrist. Screaming in pain as his bones are crushed, he drops his gun and Bucky kicks it away.

Walking slowly forward, with the smoking gun still raised, you stare down into the face of the man who's haunted your dreams for the better part of your life. Who spent the last several hours smiling while he slapped your face. While he snapped a leather strap across your arms. While he tightened a thin rope around your neck.

Who smiled the day he shot your father and took away the only person you had in the world.

Bucky's pistol feels perfect and right in your hand, as you point it at his face. Vengeance, retribution, revenge, whatever word fits, you're feeling it right now, surging adrenaline making you light-headed. Finger brushing the trigger, you steel yourself for the final shot, for the chance to end this on your terms.

The moment drags on and on, the sounds of his wet gasping the only thing in your ears.

"Come on little girl, do it!" he manages to taunt, choking on the words.

Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger.

This man killed your Dad. He tortured you. He destroyed your childhood.

Pull the fucking trigger!

Your arm begins to tremble, precious moments allotted for escape now lost as you stare down. A strangled sob suddenly breaks through and your heavy arm begins to lower. Tears fill your eyes, and you rub them furiously away, trying to raise your arm again.

And then Bucky reaches over, gently pushing the gun down. Looking at him, the tears spill over, sliding down your cheeks, dripping from the tip of your nose.

"You're not a killer," he says quietly. "Once you pull the trigger, you can't take it back. If you want to do it I'll help, but don't become something you're not, just because you think you should."

Firm and compassionate, his familiar voice shakes you out of the haze. Sniffling, you hesitate for another moment, before letting the gun relax at your side. With a deep breath, you turn away instead, snipping the strings tethering you to the survivor's guilt that's hung around your neck for so long.

Bucky nods encouragingly, and together you walk away from the bleeding man. Putting his arm around you, he pulls you in tight. Covers your ear and presses your head against his shoulder, muffling the world.

Then he raises his arm behind him and fires one quick shot.

The hallway goes quiet once more.

*****

Moments later, you turn another corner, relief palpable when you hear Bucky speak.

"We're close, there's an exit in two turns," he mutters, his body still tense, eyes wary as he tugs you along. He taps the comms in his ear, letting it go to the loudspeaker so you can hear as well. "Steve, we're near the north exit, where are you?"

Clear as a bell, Steve's voice comes through sounding annoyed. Gunfire sounds in the background and you hear the clatter of tin cans on concrete, followed by a slow hiss.

"We're coming, just – finishing something up. Apparently Nat decided this was the right time to test Stark's new gas grenades."

"Don't be lame Rogers, these guys are assholes," you hear Nat laughing in the background.

"Yeah no shit, just wondering why – ouch, god dammit – why you couldn't wait 10 seconds. Buck, we'll meet you at the rendezvous point in 10 minutes. Did you find Bernstein?"

"Negative, no sign, I think he ghosted from – "

The comms crackles and goes off. Bucky taps it impatiently, but it stays quiet.

Stark technology will not fail a second time and it takes a split second to connect the dots.

Something is happening.

Swearing fiercely, Bucky pushes you behind him, his arm keeping you pressed against his back.

"Stay against me. Do not move away," he grits out, eyes scanning the empty corridor, searching, searching, searching.

He hears the sound before he sees it happen. It raises the hair at his neck, and with sizzling burst of heat, a web of electricity blooms before you, a curtain of transparent white light. Spinning around, you find the same thing behind, a crackling fence of fire trapping you together.

"Fucking hell," Bucky hisses, eyes whipping back and forth, assessing the electric barriers. Hesitating slightly, he stretches a tentative metal finger forward.

"Bucky, don't – " the warning is still leaving your lips when his hand makes contact. The harsh zap flings his arm back.

"Dammit, I didn't think these'd still be here," he growls in frustration. His fingers curl into a hard fist, metal plates whirring as they reset after the electric shock.

Looking through the waves of energy, you can see beyond them, but there's no possibility of passing. "What are they?"

"Fry zones. Barricades to trap people," he mutters. "When a building was under attack, they were set up like alarms. Someone must have triggered them earlier, because I killed everyone else in the building."

"Well that's just awesome," you mumble, pressing close to him. Bucky turns to face you, hugging you against his chest.

"Okay, it's alright. The team are coming this way, they'll find us when we miss the rendezvous, so we just wait. Can you do that for me?"

"Yeah," your voice is muffled against the thick fabric.

Bucky leans down to press a feather-light kiss to your forehead, the barest hint of a touch. For a second, you wonder if the sound of electricity is still the walls around you, or if it's the feel of his mouth on your skin. Snuggling closer, you relax in his arms, while his hands rub long, soothing strokes up your back.

For a long, happy moment, all is well. The world is right. A bright future together is so close.

But inevitably, it doesn't last.

The measured, deliberate click of dress shoes on concrete rises above the steady hum of electricity, and Bucky's body goes rigid. His arms tighten around you, but when you raise your head, his jaw is clenched and his face is white, sweat already slicking his forehead. His eyes are fixed on something above you, beyond you, and still clasped in his arms, you slowly turn.

Jack stands on the other side of the barrier, his face flooded with desperate, hungry longing as he gazes at Bucky. He licks his lips and comes closer to the cage, and even through the thick fabric of his jacket, you feel Bucky's heart racing.

"So, here we are then. After all this, there he is," Jack breathes fervently, moving closer, unable to help himself. "I see him under there Barnes. Let him out to play. Let him come home."

Bucky lets go of you, tugging you behind him and extending both arms, widening his stance.

"Drop the barricade and let us go," he says calmly. "She has nothing to do with this."

With a snort, Jack shakes his head.

"Wrong. She has everything to do with it. It's because of her that you're even here. She's a weakness. She's your weakness, don’t you see that? You think you're in control, but she stole that from you. Look at you! Following her here like a pathetic dog. Jesus Christ, what did you do to my Soldier, you've ruined him Barnes."

"Seriously Jack, eat a dick you dramatic piece of shit," poking your head around Bucky, you try to move in front of him, but he holds you in place.

"Don't, it's not worth it," he murmurs warningly.

Jack looks amused for a moment, but it fades as he considers an idea.

"She's scrappy, I'll give her that. We could make a deal you know – give me back my Soldier and I'll let him keep her if he wants. She can be his pet, something soft and breakable to entertain him. Maybe that's what was missing before."

Bucky feels a swoop in his stomach as he considers Jack. Hearing his voice now, he's baffled how in seven hells he could have ever forgotten this man. It's so clear, so god damn obvious he wants to scream. But in the midst of that anger, Sam Wilson's voice pops in his head, and Bucky suddenly remembers the closing remarks of his first group therapy session down at the VA.

"Some things you leave behind, some you carry home. It's your decision what you need to let yourself heal."

Bucky understands it then, the choice he made. The only way he could let himself heal, to get better and move on, was to let go of the horrors in his past. Including this one.

"No deal you sick fuck," he says flatly. "Let us go or I swear to God, I'll rip you to pieces with my bare hands."

Jack shrugs at the response.

"Alright then, if that's what you want," he steps even closer to the barrier, so close you can see the gleaming white of his eyes. "I gave you a chance, so – just know that what happens next is your fault Barnes, it's all on you. I hope you remember that. In the end."

Jack reaches behind him, grasping for something in his pocket, and Bucky crouches slightly, a snarl on his face as he settles into battle stance.

When his hand reappears, Jack's holding a thick paperback book.

He smiles.

*****

Next Chapter

*****

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky fic #bucky barnes fic #safe with me

3K notes · View notes

bbclesmis · 5 years

Text

Can the BBC’s Les Misérables do justice to Victor Hugo’s epic novel?

Few who love Les Mis the musical have read its source: a 1,500-page Victor Hugo novel. As the BBC tackles the book, David Bellos explains why it’s such a popular text to adapt.

The Sunday Times, December 16 2018, 12:01am

At dawn on June 19, 1815, in a muddy Belgian field where Napoleon has just lost his last battle, a scavenger filches the watch and purse of a dying soldier; a few weeks later, a long-term inmate of Toulon jail is released with a yellow passport and 109 francs. That’s where interlocking stories of Les Misérables begin, with Thénardier robbing the father of Marius, and Valjean setting off towards Digne.

If you think the magic of Les Mis comes mainly from the operatic version by Boublil and Schönberg, wait until you see the new adaptation by Andrew Davies, drawn from the book and not, like Tom Hooper’s 2012 film, from the musical, which leaves out most of Hugo’s novel’s story and doesn’t even mention the Battle of Waterloo. Davies’s script begins at the beginning, and the director, Tom Shankland, makes a truly memorable opener out of it.

Any adaptation of Les Misérables stands in a global tradition of spin-offs in every medium. In the cinema alone, there are about 70 full-length Misérables, in languages as varied as Russian, Farsi and Arabic. In Japan, there has been an independent strain of Mis-mania, expressed in manga and animé, for 100 years.

It’s not hard to see why Les Misérables is so much more attractive to dramatists than any other novel of the 19th century. Despite long passages of historical and philosophical discussion, Hugo’s saga of the poor has a simple narrative arc. It tells the redemptive life story of the former convict Valjean, from his release at Toulon to his death in Paris 20 years later. And, despite the sufferings that fill its pages, it is an optimistic story of how a man from the bottom of the pile may aspire to goodness and achieve it through persistence and sacrifice (plus the kind of luck that novels can invent). That’s dramatic enough.

Hugo was also a dramatist of genius. He created grand scenes ready for staging. The candlestick episode at Digne; the courtroom in Arras, where Valjean gives himself up to save an innocent man; the hold-up in Boulevard de l’Hôpital and Valjean’s escape from it; and the opening vision of a vulture-like thief robbing a dead man the morning after the greatest battle ever fought. Nearly all these great scenes feature a hero, part Hercules, part Christ, who defines himself through actions, not through thoughts and words. In fact, Valjean hardly says a word to himself, and not many to other people, either.

This leaves adapters and directors free to create their own image of this mythical figure. We’ve had a Valjean who looks like a tramp (the rough-hewn Harry Baur in Raymond Bernard’s 1934 film) and one who looks like a banker (in the Japanese TV serial), alongside handsome young men (Fredric March, Liam Neeson) and an action-movie star (Jean-Paul Belmondo) who had trouble pretending to be the right age. What we’ve not had is a Valjean who looks like Hugo: a short, broad-shouldered man in late middle age, in remarkably good physical shape. Despite being too tall, Dominic West, in this new TV version, comes closer than most. Les Misérables is not autobiographical (Hugo never went to prison, got buried alive or went down the sewers), but the writer’s moral self-identification with the suffering hero is one of the fundamental strengths of his book.

It was destined for the stage from the start. Even before the last volumes went on sale in July 1862, Charles Hugo, the writer’s son, began drafting a stage spectacular. A script doctor was hired to get it into shape for its premiere in Brussels in January 1863. It still flopped. But, published as a book, it influenced adaptations as to what to cut and keep.

The addition of music also has roots older than the West End musical version. Almost as soon as the first American translation of the novel appeared, a dramatist called Albert Cassedy dashed off Fantine, or The Fate of a Grisette, a popular opera with a score by Charles Koppitz. Music also plays an overlooked role in the novel: the tune Cosette practises on her piano- organ and the songs sung by schoolgirls in the Champs-Elysées, by convicts on tumbrils, by students in restaurants, hummed by a hunter in the woods and shouted out by an urchin on his way to the barricade, make up a concert programme of popular music in 19th-century France. It’s time to dust these off and perform them as the music Hugo had in his head.

Britain has had an unhappy relationship with Hugo’s epic tale because its authorised translation, by a retired military gentleman with his own views about what happened at Waterloo, was a complete disaster. For legal reasons, no new version could be brought out for decades thereafter. It didn’t help that the translation was available only in a costly hardback format.

Les Misérables reached its real audience in Britain through stage plays, and it’s amazing to see just how many there were: Charity, by CH Hazlewood, “founded on Victor Hugo’s story of Les Misérables”, was performed in London in November 1862; then came Jean Valjean, by Harry Seymour, Clarance Holt’s Out of Evil Cometh Good, in 1867, and many more. They concentrated heavily on Part I of Hugo’s five-part novel. The battle scene at Waterloo in Part II and the “revolutionary” stories of Parts IV and V seem to have been ignored most of the time.

In Russia, too, Tolstoy’s retelling of Les Misérables in simple language focused on Bishop Myriel’s charitable gift of silver to a rough customer. It was this fable-like episode, transposed into English by Norman McKinnel as The Bishop’s Candlesticks in 1908, that was turned into a silent short film by Herbert Brenon in 1913, which was then remade with a soundtrack in 1929. It never stopped, leaving Andrew Davies with a rich inheritance to renew — and to overturn. But he keeps one of the glitches that early translators made and that all Hollywood movie versions retain: he has Valjean steal the bishop’s silver cutlery, whereas in the novel he steals his silver plates (the French word “couvert” having changed its meaning).

One reason why Les Misérables has been remade in so many languages and periods is sex, or, more precisely, its total absence. It wasn’t prudery that kept Hugo off the topic. (He had plenty of experience, to put it politely.) But Les Misérables is about justice, social morality, crime, punishment, the meaning of history and the full potential of human life.

It’s true that old Gillenormand boasts of his past as a rake, but at 90 years of age, he’s long past acting out. It’s also true that Fantine becomes a prostitute — but Hugo deals with the episode in just seven words. Adaptations that put sex into the story express not what Hugo wrote about, but what some audiences are expected to find alluring.

On the other hand, a belief in the existence of a god is integral to the book’s meaning. Deeply sceptical of the Catholic church, Hugo omits Christian artefacts and rituals (including midnight Mass at Montfermeil and the church wedding of Cosette and Marius) to a degree that is almost comical in a panorama of 19th-century life, but he insisted that Les Misérables was a religious work. The prismatic glint of sunlight through foliage that Shankland deploys in the new BBC version, to show the start of Valjean’s conversion after robbing Petit-Gervais, seems to me an intelligent and respectful way of hinting at what Hugo meant.

One of the more puzzling aspects of Les Misérables and its flourishing international afterlife is its exclusive focus on France. There’s not a single foreigner among the 120 named characters in the novel; barring occasional remarks about London, Poland and the United States, Les Misérables talks exclusively about the history, politics, social structure and social ills of the country that Hugo considered to be top nation for all time, namely his own.

Though largely written in Guernsey and initially published in Belgium, the book was written for the French by a man whose long exile had no foreseeable end. Its first translator into Italian requested permission to cut historical passages because “there are some Italians, rather a lot in fact, who say: ‘This book, Les Misérables, is a French book. It is not about us. Let the French read it as history, let us read it as a novel.’”

Permission was refused. The intensity and completeness of this exposition of the social ills in 19th-century France effectively turned that now mythical place into a stand-in for the whole world. You can’t blame Hugo for not being in tune with 21st-century ideas of the politically correct, but you have to admire him for standing outside the conventions of his day.

His response to the translator has a prophetic sense, and answers in advance the question of why his French-focused masterpiece continues to attract readers, fans and adapters all over the world: “I do not know whether [my book] will be read by all, but I wrote it for everyone... Social problems go beyond borders. The sores of the human race, these running sores that cover the globe, don’t stop at red or blue lines drawn on the map. Wherever men are ignorant and desperate, wherever women sell themselves for bread, wherever children suffer for want of instruction or a warm hearth, Les Misérables knocks on the door and says, ‘Open up, I have come for you.’”

David Bellos is the author of The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Misérables (Penguin £10.99). Les Misérables starts on BBC1 on Dec 30 at 9pm; Dominic West is interviewed in the Magazine next Sunday

‘The Glums’: a potted history

● The full text of Les Misérables in the right order of reading was not available to British readers until 2008, in a version by the Australian writer Julie Rose.

● In 1897, the Lumière brothers shot a one-minute reel of a quick-change artist masquerading as Hugo, Valjean, Thénardier, Marius and Javert. This was the first time fiction had ever appeared on celluloid film.

● Victor Hugo’s wife, Adèle, operated as publicity manager for the novel’s launch. She created a poster campaign featuring illustrations of the main characters, making the novel’s imminent appearance known long before its publication. Nothing like that had been done before. She also had announcements prepared for newspapers and requested that they were held back from publication until she gave the signal, making Les Misérables probably the first work launched under embargo.

● When Hugo was ready to publish Les Misérables in 1862, he secured the publishing deal of all time: in today’s terms, he was paid about £3m as an advance on a contract allowing the publisher Albert Lacroix to print the book for just eight years. Lacroix had to get a huge bank loan to finance the book.

● Charles Dickens met Hugo in Paris in 1847, visiting his splendid apartment on Place Royale. There is not a trace of the event in Hugo’s records, which suggests the British author didn’t make a strong impression on the literary star of his day. In Dickens’s eyes, though, Hugo looked “like the Genius he was”.

● Hugo’s contemporaries weren’t all taken with his novel: “This book is written for catholico-socialist shitheads and for the philosophico-evangelical ratpack,” Gustave Flaubert wrote to a friend.

● When Hugo fled France in 1851, both his sons were in prison and Louis-Napoléon — Napoléon III — was his sworn enemy. “Because we had Napoléon le Grand, do we have to have Napoléon le Petit?” he quipped.

● Les Misérables has been adapted for radio and cinema more times than any other novel.

● Classical literary French had a restricted vocabulary. Racine got by with about 2,000 words. Hugo uses about 20,000 different words in the 630,000 words of the text of Les Misérables — maybe as many as in all of Shakespeare working in English, which has a much larger vocabulary in the first place.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/culture/can-the-bbcs-les-miserables-do-justice-to-victor-hugos-epic-novel-50wtqgvdj?t=ie

#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #articles #David Bellos #victor hugo #spoilers #episode 1

49 notes · View notes